Veiled Intentions
by Cullible
Summary: Dumbledore has succumbed to Riddle's cursed ring and the Dark Lord is beginning to make his move. Finding herself once again caught up in his plans for the Boy Who Lived, Hermione must do everything she can to help Neville keep himself from succumbing to the Dark Lord. With no ones loyalty assured, she begins to notice something off about a certain green-eyed Hufflepuff.
1. The Next Great Adventure

**Chapter One - The Next Great Adventure**

The end of year feast was a grim affair, the usual joy of the holidays replaced by a bleak malaise, as students sneaked a glance up towards the teacher's table at the man many thought to be invincible. In his customary ridiculous attire Albus Dumbledore returned every glance with a small smile of reassurance.

For some it was enough to calm their nerves, but others noticed that the smile did not quite reach his eyes. Crinkled and weathered as they were, each smile brought a shiver and each shiver seemed to cool the fire in the old blue depths.

When Hermione braved a look she found herself staring at the shell of a once great wizard. His robes hanging off him and his hands shaking as he ate. His movements were slow and imprecise and every loud noise caused him to start and grimace in pain. When her eyes finally found his face he met them firmly, and gave her a short nod of his head before flicking his eyes towards Neville. The message was clear, be there for him.

For Neville it was too much, silently getting up from his seat at the Gryffindor table he took off out the ancient oak doors of the great hall and continued onwards in the direction of the Lake.

Ron, as was his way, stood up to follow immediately. Turning her gaze away from Dumbledore, and onto her two best friends Hermione sighed softly. Quickly gathering her things she followed the two boys, and as a three they exited the castle, the eyes of the student body and one very old and very tired wizard boring into their backs.

* * *

It took him three weeks to finally die. When the curse inevitably reached his heart Dumbledore called for Neville and spoke to him privately. Hermione knew of course what it would be about, Neville had told her and Ron at the end of last year about the prophecy and it was obvious that Dumbledore wished to give him one last piece of advice before moving on to the next great adventure.

The three of them had been staying at Hogwarts over the summer while the rest of the student body ventured home, the morbid end of year feast forgotten as they returned to their families after a fairly uneventful school year. Neville had been in near constant contact with Dumbledore as the curse took its hold and it had left Ron and herself with little to do except sit around and wait.

Hermione, as expected, had found herself delving deep into the Hogwarts library, initially in the search for anything that would help Neville in the upcoming months and years, but soon she found herself reading just to keep herself occupied.

That day she was reading an account of the first failed attempts at alchemy by the 11th century wizard Pierre Dupuis, a man who had by all indications been entirely mad. He had undoubtedly been correct in some of his postulates but had spent the majority of his academic and social career attempting to woo an Austrian potions mistress who had, amongst other things, been one of the first to acknowledge the composition of the cauldron as a key element in brewing. She was unsurprisingly not interested at all in his rather haphazard experiments and seemed to abhor his company, yet he stuck at it until he managed to kill them both in an impromptu demonstration of his theory of element transfer. Amusingly violent stuff and totally unrelated to the current problems presenting themselves to her, but Hermione didn't care, it was nice to just lose yourself in a book occasionally and forget about the outside world.

When someone sat across from her she knew before she looked who she would find, Ron never came into the Library these days and the teachers had mostly gone off to travel or engage in personal projects. Neville Longbottom looked more weary than she had ever seen him. For the first time in his life he seemed gaunt and thin. His normally chubby face had slowly receded to leave his skin stretched across his wide bony jaw and his short hair hanging lifeless across his forehead. The deep red of his famous curse scar poked out beneath the limp uneven fringe, he still attempted to hide it sometimes, even if most recognised him by face immediately. His eyes were watery and empty.

"H-he's gone, Hermione" he choked.

The news hit her like a train and all the thoughts and emotions she had been hiding from in the books around her came storming to the front of her mind. Gasping she clutched her hand to her heart, and tears began to well up in her eyes. She had expected it yes, but it didn't temper the news any. Albus Dumbledore was dead.

"He's gone and n-now I have to do this alone, and I don't even know what it is I'm supposed to do" Neville continued, voice cracking as he fought back the tears.

Taking in the broken boy sat before her, Hermione's eyes cleared and she made a split second decision and grabbed his hand tightly across the table.

"No Neville, never alone." She said softly. "Ron and I will support you, and McGonagall and the order will do everything in their power to assist you however they can. Besides, we still have another year before we really need to start, nobody is expecting you to face Voldemort before graduating."

"I don't think I'll ever be ready." He said quietly.

"You will be Neville, I know you will" Hermione replied, not daring to let her grip on his hands loosen.

_You'll have to be._

* * *

Hermione watched the procession of Witches and Wizards walk slowly past the coffin of Albus Dumbledore with a deep sadness. Each and every one would have a story to tell of how he had affected them personally. For some the story would merely be a tale of an old headmaster who helped them out in their time of need, for others it would be of a more dramatic nature. Those who remembered Dumbledore during the first war doubtlessly had tales of his unwavering commitment to the light, or his staunch defence of the muggleborns under his care at Hogwarts. Some of the combat veterans of the war would probably speak of his almost unmatchable prowess on the field of battle, how his wand would twist and turn and conjure and transfigure all manner of complex constructs and objects to give him the advantage. The elder members of the procession might well hold distant memories of an upstart British wizard vanquishing a tyrannical dark lord in a duel that shook the world. They might think to remind those younger than themselves that Albus Dumbledore was once a young prodigy, a force of magic that took the fight to those who shrouded themselves in darkness. They might even lament the cautious old man he became.

But when Hermione had walked past his coffin and looked one last time upon the face of Albus Dumbledore, she remembered him not as a prodigy or a war hero or even a headmaster, but as a kind old man burdened with the knowledge that he could no longer protect Neville from his destiny. His wand was clasped firmly in his good hand and held across his heart, the long black wood glistening in the morning sun. His other arm lay dead at his side, concealed by his pure white robes, the only visible damage was the blackened claw poking out of his sleeve, evidence of the final sacrifice he made for the war and for the Boy-Who-Lived.

The ring that was the cause of the disfigurement was long gone, taken by the Ministry to the Department of Mysteries where they were endeavouring to identify the curse that the Dark Lord had placed upon it. It felt somehow wrong that Dumbledore be parted from the object he had given his life for in this way, but the Ministry had been insistent and McGonagall had been unable to protest.

The teachers and close friends of Dumbledore had been first in the procession. Professor McGonagall had stood tall as she strode up to the Coffin at the head of the line, taking a long moment to gaze down at him before moving ahead, the image of control but eyes betraying her as a tear slipped slowly down her cheek.

Snape had barely glanced at the coffin as he followed her, as if unable to bear looking at the man, though whether out of sadness, anger or fear it was not clear.

Next had been the Ministry officials and various ICW and Wizengamot dignitaries, slowly shuffling along, some looking down with undisguised distaste. Scrimgeour had required all heads of departments to attend, as well as most of the high level staff within the departments, to provide a unified image to the public.

Finally the Hogwarts students had had their turn. The line proceeded in approximate year order, with the first years heading up first. Unsurprisingly not many of the first years had felt up to the funeral, or their parents had not wished them to go. However a few did make it and trickled up in ones and twos to look at their headmaster one last time.

Hermione was not shocked to notice that there were not many Slytherins present, although they were represented more in the lower years. She had counted only one from her year amongst the procession, Tracey Davis, a half-blood student who had apparently had a rather hard time in the house of the snakes. She had seen Dumbledore take her aside once or twice across the years and couldn't help but wonder what it was they discussed.

She watched on as the final few members of the Hogwarts procession slowly moved along, a group of 3 Ravenclaw girls in the year above her making their way away from the coffin and towards the gathered students revealed one last member ready to say their final goodbye.

Slowly walking up to Dumbledore as if in a trance was the waif-like form of Harry Potter. Wearing the yellow lined robes of his house and his customary pair of round glasses he struck an odd figure, composed and confidant in his movements, but eyes betraying a certain anxiety. It was an unsettling combination, especially when taking into account his short, thin stature.

She watched with growing interest as the quiet, reserved Hufflepuff reached Dumbledore's side and stood stoically over the Headmaster, deep green eyes narrowing as he looked down.

She started suddenly as he bared his teeth in fury and growled loud enough that she could make it out across the considerable distance between them.

Reaching for her wand she began to rush towards him, intent on protecting the Headmaster, but before she had covered even half the distance to the coffin his face relaxed into a sad smile and he muttered something to himself before walking on.

Coming to a standstill she warily watched him go, eyes never leaving his wand arm, her own tense at her side.

"You alright 'mione?" a voice asked from behind her, tearing her eyes off of the boy she quickly turned round to find herself face to face with her boyfriend, Ron Weasley.

"Yeah, just, just paranoid I think" she replied uneasily, sighing as she calmed herself, before her eyes ones again sought out Harry Potter.

"Paranoid about what?"

"Oh it's nothing, I just thought someone was going to attack Dumbledore..." She trailed off, she could find no trace of him anywhere, he had vanished into the crowd.

"I wouldn't worry about that, there must be at least twenty Aurors here today, and my dad says that they've got another forty ready to be called in at a moment's notice if there is trouble. Not even You-Know-Who would risk it" Ron reassured her, a small cocky grin alighting on his face.

"I know, I was being stupid" giving up her search, Hermione motioned to Ron "c'mon, let's go find Neville and Ginny, I don't feel like watching the whole Wizarding World pay their respects."

As the two of them walked away, neither noticed the pair of unnatural green eyes following them from within the crowd of students.

* * *

It was with trepidation that Hermione Granger boarded the Hogwarts express on September the 1st. It would be the last time she would set off towards the magic school as a student on the train. Though undoubtedly she would travel home or to the burrow for Christmas, she would not be taking the old steam engine back to King's Cross. Sighing sadly she made her way down the train looking for Neville and Ron.

The younger years parted before her, possibly due to respect but more likely because they noticed the Head Girls badge on her robes. The news had come in the post not long after Dumbledore's funeral, and she had been delighted to receive the honour. Now as the school year finally began to get underway she began to worry about the responsibility of the position, not to mention who her male counterpart would be.

Finally finding the two boys in a compartment a few cars from the back of the train she realised she needn't have worried, haphazardly pinned on to Neville's left lapel was the counterpart to her own badge.

Opening the door she quickly said hi to Neville before jumping on Ron and greeting him with a long kiss. It had been a good few weeks since they had seen each other and, although she would not admit it out loud, she had missed him dearly. After Dumbledore's funeral her and Ron had stuck around at Hogwarts for a few days before Ron returned to the Burrow and she returned to her family. Neville had been taken under the wing of the Order, and Moody and Kingsley had decided to attempt to train him to the best they could for the upcoming conflict. Ron, as to be expected, had initially demanded to be included too, but after sitting in on one session he had decided that perhaps he wasn't cut out for the intensity the three worked at. Neville was furiously committed to the training and the two Aurors did everything they could to push him to his limit.

He had become more reserved than ever before, more confidant in his skills yes, but he spent most of his time either practicing spells or researching Voldemort in some way. It had become an obsessive compulsion and the other two members of the golden trio found themselves with little to do and little contact with their vacant companion.

Initially her and Ron had made the most of their private time together, and sitting back in a seat next to him, Hermione blushed slightly at the memory. The Gryffindor tower was not always quiet during the summer. But eventually they had decided that there was no point them hanging around Hogwarts, although McGonagall assured them they were more than welcome to stay, and they parted ways to return home to their families. Neville had remained to continue his training.

Looking on with some amusement at the reunited couple teh boy-who-lived cleared his throat softly, but surely.

"I see you managed to surprise us all and get the Head girl position Hermione?" He said wryly.

Catching his eye, Ron let out a short laugh and turned towards his girlfriend with a quick grin.

"And damn proud of her we are too, didn't know she had it in her!"

Hermione batted Neville's arm playfully before turning to glare at Ron in mock anger.

"Don't think you are getting any special considerations mister, you may be my boyfriend but you are not above the rules!" She said temperamentally but the hint of a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth.

"And what punishment will you deem necessary if you catch me with my girlfriend in a broom closet somewhere" Ron replied quickly, wiggling his eyebrows as he did so.

Neville fought to hide a gufaw but failed miserably and Hermione couldn't help but smile.

With that the 3 settled in as the train pulled away from the station and began discussing their summers.

It was going to be weird heading back to a Hogwarts with no Dumbledore, but nevertheless, it was good to be returning to the castle one last time.

* * *

Hermione woke early the next day and headed down to the great hall for breakfast. The common room was quiet as she passed through, one or two first years had obviously woken early and were sat in a corner attempting to make conversation with each other, but apart from that, she was the only one up. Looking out the window she saw the weather outside was typically grey and dreary. Thinking about it, she couldn't remember a single time she had arrived at Hogwarts and it had been anything but grey and dreary. Some things never changed.

Making her way out the entrance and saying a quick hello to the Fat Lady she wandered slowly towards the great hall, thinking back to the welcoming feast the night before. It had gone as well as could be expected without the presence of the old Headmaster to add his personal hint of weirdness to the occasion. McGonagall had taken his seat at the head table, now the Headmistress of Hogwarts, and Flitwick had taken up her role of overseeing the sorting.

It must have been quite an odd introduction to the school of magic for the first years, she mused, turning off the corridor and down a large staircase that immediately began to move sideways towards her next stop. The gigantic form of Hagrid had greeted them at the station as per usual and had taken them across the lake to take in the first sight of the castle that would become their home for the next 7 years, and had then promptly passed them off to the excitable diminutive form of Professor Flitwick, bouncing around as he told them about the house system.

The turnout was not as substantial as the year before, where many families who traditionally did not send their children to Hogwarts, either because they homeschooled them or because they chose to send them abroad, had hoped to protect them from the resurrected Lord Voldemort by placing them under the eyes of Dumbledore, but there was still a fair few new faces in the school. The sorting had taken place without a hitch and the 4 houses accepted their new members with raucous applause. This year Ravenclaw had found themselves with the highest number of new members and Hufflepuff the lowest, but as always it was a difference of only a handful of students.

McGonagall had then given a short terse speech before the food had appeared on the table and the students had dug in, filling their bellies and eventually, heading off to their respective common rooms to welcome the first years. The Headmistress had held her and Neville behind and told them to organise a meeting with the prefects within the week to decide on patrol rotas and standard punishments for the various infractions.

It had been a tiring night for most, the younger years because of the experience of the first day at school, and as for the older years, well, the start of term parties had gone on late into the night. Hermione was therefore not surprised to find the Great Hall practically empty when she entered. McGonagall sat at the head table slowly leafing through the daily prophet, a large pile of timetables next to her goblet. Hermione went up to greet her and with a smile accepted her timetable and moved back towards the Gryffindor table to where she, Ron and Neville normally sat.

Taking in the distribution of her lessons she nodded to herself slightly before putting the timetable in her bag and reaching for some toast. From her position at the Gryffindor table she could see the rest of the Hall clearly. Seated with her back to the right hand wall of the Great Hall she looked around with vague interest at the other early birds in the room.

Further down the Gryffindor table a few 3rd or 4th years sat bleary eyed, staring into their goblets and mumbling to each other softly. She was fairly sure she had seen the 3 of them getting involved with the festivities the night before and was sure they were regretting it now. Across from them at the Ravenclaw table Luna Lovegood sat playing with her butterbeer cap necklace. Noticing her looking she smiled vacantly at Hermione and waved cheerily across to her. Waving back Hermione shook her head slightly in amusement at the girl, she was a weird one that's for sure but she was definitely one of her friends and she was glad to have her.

Her small smile was wiped of her face immediately however as she took in the only member of Hufflepuff house currently in the great hall, Harry Potter.

He sat on his own facing towards her with his head down towards his timetable, as if in deep thought. His messy hair sprouted from his head wildly and he ran his hand through it once or twice absent-mindedly as if to provide some sort of structure to the calamity, unsuccessfully Hermione noted.

Her memories rushed back to the day of Dumbledore's funeral and the deep fury that had graced his sallow features when gazing down at the old headmaster in his final resting place. Narrowing her eyes she found herself subconsciously reaching for her wand again underneath the table. She didn't trust Harry Potter in the slightest.

She had brought his odd actions up with a number of people but nobody seemed to have noticed it apart from her and she soon found herself frustrated as they repeatedly questioned her paranoia. Harry Potter was a Hufflepuff through and through, they said. Completely average in every way, he was clearly no threat to anyone or anything. Had she not seen his face at the funeral she would undoubtedly have said the same thing, now she was not so sure, there was something off about Harry Potter and she couldn't place it. Her suspicions had eventually been placed at the back of her mind after the funeral but they were surfacing again now.

As if sensing her gaze on him he looked up suddenly, and she found herself caught in his deep green eyes, a questioning expression on his face. Looking away quickly she felt herself flush with embarrassment. Maybe she was just overreacting she thought to herself quickly, not daring to look back towards him again, finding her piece of toast suddenly very interesting. After all, he was not the only person to have looked upon Dumbledore with distaste, there were many who disagreed with the man in some way.

Slowly the great hall began to fill up with people and Hermione soon found herself surrounded by chatty Gryffindors recounting the events of the previous night in loud voices and laughing at each other's expense. Joining in quickly she mentioned to the currently very animated Seamus how she and Neville had found him passed out over the back of the sofa at 11 o'clock, much to the amusement of the boys around him and to the embarrassment of Seamus himself. Smirking slightly she found herself forgetting Harry Potter in favour of hearing how Dean had attempted to woo a completely sober 6th year girl, who happened to have a boyfriend at home and had received a nice red mark on his right cheek as a reward.

A shriek broke the chatter and they boys looked up quickly towards the direction of a first year girl who was currently being assaulted by one of the school owls. The post was here. The room broke out into loud laughter much to the girls embarrassment as people began reaching for their post.

But the laughter quieted suddenly and a chill went through the hall as 3 ravens entered through the large open windows. Circling silently in the air they split up and headed towards their intended recipients. The hall waited with baited breath as one by one they floated down, one each towards the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. Short sobs resounded through the hall as the black envelopes were dropped in front of the 3 unlucky students for which they were intended. One of the 4th years she had seen this morning nursing a hangover was now staring shakily at the black letter in his hand. McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout had jumped to attention as soon as they noticed the letters and moved quickly to the students who had received them, taking them out of the room to comfort them and the room broke out into quiet murmuring. Voldemort had struck.

There was a deep unease in the hall but the Slytherin table contained a few rather smug faces. Slowly the rest of the halls occupants realised that no letter had arrived for a member of Slytherin and began to turn towards the table at the far end of the hall.

Malfoy seemed to be basking in the attention and made to stand up, no doubt to boast or to belittle the other houses, but he was stopped in his tracks as another gasp rang out through the hall.

A fourth and final black raven had slipped silently through the window in the commotion and was now circling overhead. The hall watched with growing dread as the black eyes of the bird hunted for its target.

Locating its intended the raven floated down carefully amid a deathly silence and perched itself on the shoulder of a fifth year Slytherin girl. Taking the letter from it with shaking hands she looked around in shock before fleeing the hall, leaving only the echoing footsteps of Professor Snape following her in her wake.

Voldemort had struck, and the message was clear, nobody was safe.

* * *

It was a week before the mood around the castle returned to normal, well, for most of the occupants at least. Those close to the unlucky four from the feast still seemed uneasy. Two of the four students had been pulled out of Hogwarts altogether by their remaining relatives. The Slytherin girl and the Hufflepuff had by all accounts been gone since the evening of the first day. Of the other two, it was a sad case that the 6th year Ravenclaw student had no remaining family left and had thus had to make the decision himself as to whether he wished to continue at Hogwarts. Hermione did not envy him at all, but was secretly pleased to see that he had decided to stay on and finish his education at the school.

The fourth year Gryffindor, John McCormick, had been missing classes all week and his friends were getting worried. The first two day he had been in and out of the Ministry with his maternal grandmother, trying to sort out the families affairs undoubtedly, but he had formally returned for good on the third day, and , if his friends were to be believed, had not attended a single lesson since.

Trying to drag herself away from depressing thoughts her mind turned to the first week of lessons.

Moody had 'returned' to the school to teach Defence and seemed to be making up for lost time with the students. The first lessons had been a deep examination of, as he put it, 'their pathetic knowledge' of the dark arts, and it soon became apparent to all that, in his opinion, they knew approximately nothing of worth for either their NEWTs or for defending themselves in general. Hermione was pleased to see that he picked on those not in the DA more than those who were members. That's not to say that he praised them, praise seemed reserved for Neville alone, the old Auror had deemed him an acceptable student, no doubt due to the weeks he had spent training him.

If there was one thing to be said for NEWTs, it was that they were hard. She was quite sure that if she hadn't been so prepared on the theoretical side of things she would be among the numerous students in her classes just about scraping Acceptables across the board. The step up from OWLs was brutal in the first year, but the step up from first to second year was even worse. Where in first year you might be expected to know the theory behind conjuration and be able to conjure simple constructs, McGonagall had opened her first lesson of the term by requiring each and every person to conjure a randomised complex object to demonstrate they understood the theory. Those that failed were given detention until they managed it.

Hermione was beyond thankful that she was one of the few that managed to do so before the lesson was finished, though she would have to be honest and admit that the object in question, a replica of the hourglass used in a Time Turner was something she was perhaps more familiar with than most.

She had been nevertheless quite pleased with her success until she had seen Neville conjure a suit of armour exactly mirroring the ones found dotted around the castle on his second attempt. Catching her eye he gave her a short shrug before dispelling the construct and returning to his seat to read.

He had improved massively over the summer, no doubt due to the extensive training of the two order members working with him every day. Although their focus was on duelling his improvements had obviously been felt across the entire curriculum, his charms work in Flitwick's class had been more than a match for her and Flitwick had practically fallen over himself with praise. It was enough to make a girl jealous, but Hermione had quickly squashed that thought when it had first arisen, Neville's future was far too dark for her to even begin to wish she was in his place.

Annoyingly the only other person to manage the conjuration exercise had been the ever average Harry Potter. He had received the easiest by far of the objects, one of the ornate goblets that the students used in the great hall at meal times. The goblet itself was not simple, odd bumps and engravings littered its surface and had it been the first time any of them had seen it, it would have been rather tricky, but they had spent seven years drinking out of them, and would probably be able to draw it accurately off the top of their heads.

It still took him until his 9th and final attempt before he managed it, the previous attempts had either been complete failures or the goblet had been disfigured in some way, be it too large or made of the wrong metal, a mistake Hermione couldn't even figure out how he made. His final result wasn't even perfect, the shade of the brass was far too dark and the goblet itself was a little too large, but McGonagall had deemed it good enough and he had been allowed to leave without a detention.

It was frustrating but she knew that had she not seen him at the funeral she wouldn't even have noticed it happening, he had gone completely under her radar for years. This week was the first time she realised that he was in practically all of her classes, though not in either Arithmancy or Ancient Runes. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he was planning on becoming an Auror, his classes matched up perfectly, although how he'd managed to get the O in potions that Snape required she would never know, the man hated him almost as much as he hated Neville. As far as she could tell he had never shown any particular aptitude in any of his subjects and had scraped his way into the required courses.

As Head Girl she had access to the student records of all the students at the school, primarily so that she could give repeat offenders stricter punishments for their transgressions. The records themselves went further than just discipline and contained the teachers assessment of each students aptitude in their subject for all seven years as well as the OWL scores of those in 6th year and above.

Hermione had been very tempted to use this position to look up Harry's scores but the thought of her justifying herself to McGonagall if she was called on it was enough to put her off. Besides, she was sure she would just find out what she already knew, Harry Potter was a mid to low level student, and nothing else.

Heading to the great hall for dinner Hermione found her path blocked by a crowd of students on the second floor, shouting jeers at whatever was happening in their midst. Hermione thought she knew what it would be, and waded into the fray expecting to find a Gryffindor student and a Slytherin student at each other's throats as had become common since her arrival at the school. As Head Girl it now unfortunately fell to her to break up such disputes if she found them and she pulled her wand out from her pocket to prepare to make herself known.

Before she could raise it to her throat and amplify her voice she felt a hand on her shoulder pull her back. Turning around enraged she found Neville looking at her warily, eyes on the wand in her left hand.

"Leave them be Hermione." he said, nodding his head towards the two boys standing across from each other in the middle of a wide circle.

"Neville! It is our duty as prefects to break this up, we can't have students fighting in the halls! Why haven't you stopped this already?!" she said angrily, ignoring the impending fight in her indignation at Neville's inaction.

"It's not as simple as that, look who's fighting" he said simply, and she finally turned to take in the source of the crowds anxious excitement.

Draco Malfoy stood, wand in hand, cockily staring down the boy across from him, Crabbe and Goyle at his back as always. The boy across from him didn't seem intimidated in the slightest, Alexander Montgomery was a tall 6th year Slytherin student with a wide build and strong angular features.

"Rumour has it that after the ravens came Malfoy made a big announcement to the Slytherins claiming that the girl's family had been killed because she was a half-blood, seeing as Malfoy's father is who he is a lot of the Slytherins have taken this as fact, pissed off a few of them though." Neville said quietly, noticing her confusion.

"Montgomery is a half-blood then?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the two boys slowly circling each other.

"Worse, he's muggleborn" Neville said, grimacing.

"Supposedly a group of Slytherins denounced Malfoy when he made his speech and have splintered off, you can see them sit away from each other at meal times now. I think they were hoping Tracey would side with them, considering she's a half-blood and all but I think Daphne and Blaise convinced her to stay out of it" he continued.

Hermione looked over to see the girl in question standing off to the side, watching the proceedings with a blank face, Daphne was whispering softly into her ear and Blaise stood a few steps back, his eyes never leaving Malfoy.

"So I guess Montgomery was the next best thing" she said.

"I guess so, I think he's become the de facto leader of the group, though some of Ginny's friends in Ravenclaw seemed to think he wasn't too pleased about it"

Hermione couldn't argue with that, the boy was undoubtedly angry at whatever Malfoy was saying but didn't look like he wanted to make a big scene, Malfoy was pushing his buttons expertly and even she could see it wouldn't be long before he burst.

"So... why exactly shouldn't we intervene and stop this? Montgomery is going to snap any minute and you know as well as I do Malfoy is just waiting for him to cast the first spell, he won't hold back once this starts." She said, looking back towards Neville oddly.

Sighing he met her gaze firmly.

"Think about it Hermione, if we step in now, considering who we are, what will Malfoy say? That Montgomery needed us to save him, that he was weak for not fighting his own battles? At best all that will happen is that Malfoy will get a couple of free digs at Montgomery, at worst people might actually listen to him. From what I hear, Slytherin is on edge nowadays, nobody is doing anything overt in the house, but if we present Malfoy with the opportunity to call Montgomery out, one of Montgomery's group will respond. This way the entire house doesn't get involved and it becomes a personal issue between the two." he said.

Hermione didn't like it, to her it seemed that letting them fight would just open up the winner to retaliation from the loser's supporters, and whilst she wouldn't be averse to Malfoy getting some comeuppance, she could see that if one group started something, the other would retaliate in kind.

Luckily, she didn't have to make the decision. Just as Montgomery lifted his wand a curse on his lips a loud bang echoed through the corridor.

"My office, NOW!" McGonagall had arrived. The crowd quickly began to disperse under her glare as the two boys the order was aimed at lowered their wands, eyes not leaving each other for a second.

"I will not have students fighting in the halls, so early in the term as well!" The professor continued furiously.

"You there," she said, pointing towards a 3rd year boy who had been scuttling away quietly "tell Professor Snape he is needed in my office to sort out his students."

Turning towards Hermione and Neville she levelled a disappointed glare towards the pair.

"As for you two, we will be having a long discussion as to why you chose to gawp at the pair of them rather than intervene as you are supposed to" she said, not even attempting to mask her anger, before directing Malfoy and Montgomery off towards her office.

As the two boys passed them Malfoy smirked openly at Neville who ignored him as best he could. Montgomery just looked at the two of them in confusion.

Hermione sighed, had everyday life in Hogwarts ever been this stressful?

* * *

She was in the second period of her Arithmancy class when she received the note, delivered by a shy second year to Professor Vector who handed it without word to her before continuing with her lecture.

It was a week and a half since the discussion McGonagall had had with her and Neville about their conduct and she was still upset that Neville had acted as he did. She couldn't fault his logic from his viewpoint but that didn't mean she had to agree with his inaction.

Opening the note she was greeted by the Headmistress's familiar cursive script.

_'Meeting at 7 o'clock sharp, my office. Password is Kneazle.'_

Her eyes widened slightly, meeting meant Order meeting. It was the first time she had been invited to one outright, although she had found herself involved in one or two over the years, mostly as a result of Neville's actions. She knew Molly Weasley did not approve of their involvement, although she had been hard pressed to refuse Neville after the prophecy had been revealed to her she had been adamant that Ron and herself were not included. Something had changed, and Hermione wasn't sure if she liked the implication. She was needed by the order now, adult or no.

It was thus with some trepidation that she followed Ron and Neville up to the Headmistress's office. Ron it seemed had also been graced with an invitation, but he had not noticed the underlying implication behind it. Charmingly naive as ever, he was simply happy to be included.

Opening the door to McGonagall's office she expected to come upon a gathering of the order members already engaged in discussion. What she found was an empty room, bar McGonagall seated behind her desk, writing purposefully with a long feathered quill.

Looking up as they entered, she finished her sentence and stood carefully.

"You didn't think we would be meeting here did you Ms Granger?" she said in slight amusement, noticing the disappointed look on her face.

"Use the floo powder on the mantelpiece if you would, the meeting is taking place at Headquarters, I will follow as soon as Severus gets here"

Nodding sheepishly Hermione watched as Neville and then Ron flung the powder into the fireplace and disappeared into the flames.

Grabbing a handful of powder herself she flung it into the flames and stepped into the fireplace, marvelling as the green fire tickled her skin.

"12 Grimmauld Place" she said clearly, and watched as the world twisted and collapsed around her.

She landed in front of the fireplace in Grimmauld Place on bent legs. Wobbling slightly, she took a moment to orient herself.

"How do you do it?" grumbled Ron over to her left.

"I still land on my hands and knees every time, bloody stupid way of travelling if you ask me"

"Some people are just more graceful than others Ron" she replied smartly, glossing over the fact that she had nearly fallen over forwards herself.

Chuckling Neville gestured for Ron and her to follow him.

"C'mon the meetings take place in the dining room, I imagine they've pretty much started already, even if McGonagall isn't here yet"

Entering the dining room 20 heads turned to look towards them.

"Ah Hermione, Ron, I daresay a welcome is in order" Remus Lupin smiled across to them, before nodding at Neville.

The other order members having established they were not a threat ignored his suggestion and returned to the conversations they were having as if they weren't even there.

Lupin grimaced slightly.

"They tend to do that" Neville said from next to them.

"What, totally ignore us?" Hermione said, rather indignantly.

"There are... some differences of opinion, when it comes to your membership" Lupin said carefully.

"Some would rather this fight be left to them and to not involve the, uh, younger generations where it isn't necessary"

From where Hermione sat it seemed like 'some' was a synonym for 'all'. The only other acknowledgement they had recieved had been a disapproving look from Molly Weasley.

"Hey Remus, is Tonks around?" Neville asked, breaking the awkward silence threatening to descend upon the four.

"I'm afraid not, she is on veil duty tonight, and I'm sure you've heard how seriously the Department of Mysteries has been taking that." Lupin responded, happy to change the topic.

"Pity, she's normally as peeved as I am with everyone else here" Neville said with a small smile.

The rushing sound of the floo alerted the room to the arrival of the last two members and moments later Professor McGonagall and Snape entered the room, closing the door behind them. Lupin indicated to three seats next to his and the trio sat down.

The order meeting got underway slowly, much of the first 20 minutes or so was an in depth description of one of the new bills going through the Wizengamot. From what Hermione could gather it was related to the allocation of ministry funds, emphasising the Auror corps and 'the detection of illegal magic' by the DMLE.

To her it seemed as if this was a good move from Scrimgeour, but some of the order were not so sure.

"What are they defining as Illegal magic? Unforgivables? We know they have been trying to find a way to detect them for years but thusfar haven't managed to. I suspect that if Scrimgeour was planning on detecting the lesser dark arts he would have been clear about that in the bill, it only indicates illegal magic." An order member Hermione had not met before said seriously.

"Hmm I noticed that as well, I wouldn't be surprised if he was hoping to improve the detection of accidental magic, the Ministry has been lax on that for years, mostly at the insistence of a few of the older families" Lupin interjected.

"Yes but why, Lupin?" Asked another order member from further down the table.

"Scrimgeour is a good man, I wouldn't put it past him to try and push this through with the aim of finding Muggleborns before they get their Hogwarts letter in the hope that he can provide them some sort of protection from the Dark Lord if he chooses to attack them, but with the Ministry as it is, I can't see it being anything more than a liability. If the Dark Lord were to get his hands on that kind of information..." he trailed off, the unsaid implication echoing around the room.

Neville looked positively ill, and his reaction was mirrored more than once throughout the room. Hermione was feeling rather sick herself.

"Yes, well, it seems we must press the Minister for clarification on that issue then, and if it is as you fear Remus, we must urge him to reconsider." All eyes turned to McGonagall as she spoke.

"Now Severus, what news from Voldemort's camp?" She continued, turning to the potions master.

Thus far Snape, much like Hermione and Ron, had been entirely removed from the conversation.

'Probably out of personal preference rather than a feeling that he was out of his depth' Hermione thought humourlessly.

"The Dark Lord is recruiting heavily, more than he has since his return" Snape said softly, his deep voice echoing around the room.

A few eyes shifted briefly to Neville who squirmed a bit under their gaze, before returning to the spy.

"Since the giants are proving less amicable than he thought he is turning to other allies, there are whispers amongst the junior Death Eaters that he has sent out emissaries to the European Vampire clans, although I have not heard tell of this from anyone who is likely to know that for certain." He continued.

"Do you think they will talk?" Kingsley Shacklebolt asked, the question undoubtedly on the minds of many in the room.

"I don't know, were he to take Britain he would have much to offer them, but Vampires are notoriously self-centred, it is not in their nature to submit to others" Snape said, his reply did little to ease the worried faces.

"I think we should worry more about the wizards he is recruiting from the continent, I have counted at least 20 in the last month, most from France. The Vampires may get involved but it will be some time before they make their decision." he said.

"What of the Werewolves, Severus?" Lupin spoke quietly but it was clear he was agitated.

Snape stared at the man for a moment as if assessing him.

"I do not believe the Dark Lord is recruiting among the werewolves, at least not the muggle ones. It would seem he does not like to be limited to striking when the moon is full."

It was logical Hermione supposed, a Muggle Werewolf did not give the Dark Lord anything for 29 out of every 30 days, it was not worth the effort to bring them into the fold.

"What is he doing at Hogwarts?" The rough voice of Alastor Moody broke the silence following Snape's statement and suddenly Hermione felt all eyes turn towards the three of them. This was it then, the reason why they had finally been included.

"I do not know, the Dark Lord is not as stupid as some might lead you to believe. He knows I am a member of the order and he has taken no risks this time. I have not been informed in any way, I only know something is afoot because Draco cannot keep his mouth shut" Snape said slowly, glaring at the man across the table.

"This is where we hope you three can help us" McGonagall spoke quickly, diffusing the tension beginning to rise in the room.

"Professor Snape is being kept in the dark on this, but we know through Mister Malfoy that the Dark Lord has something planned for Hogwarts, we aren't sure of the nature of his plan or even a rough timescale for when it is to take place, but it would seem that Malfoy is in some way aware of it." She explained to the three of them, and Hermione found herself nodding seriously in response.

"We just need you to keep an ear out for anything you may hear and inform us. Do not make any overt move on Mister Malfoy, Voldemort will be keeping a close eye on him and if it becomes obvious we are aware of his involvement, well, there are unfortunately more than a few sympathisers within the school he can turn to instead." McGonagall continued with a hint of distaste.

"It may be that Voldemort is simply planning to recruit from within the school." Snape interrupted, staring carefully at the trio.

"Or it may be that he is looking for something" McGonagall replied, giving Neville a meaningful look that was lost on those that did not know of Voldemort's horcruxes.

"Or it may be something else entirely, either way, we need to know of anything suspicious. Malfoy will not be working alone on this, Voldemort will know he is a fool and it is unlikely he would take the risk of relying on him entirely" she continued.

"Surely we just need to keep an eye on the Slytherins?" Ron said, his face hard but thoughtful.

"Were that it were that simple Weasley." Snape glared at Ron as he spoke.

"The Dark Lord has many sympathisers, and not all of them are contained in my house, despite what you Gryffindors may think" he said, and Ron had the decency to blush slightly, no doubt remembering Peter Pettigrew.

Hermione couldn't help but find her thoughts drifting towards a certain green-eyed Hufflepuff.

* * *

Term continued much as before for Hermione, Neville and Ron.

Initially the three of them had been keen to help the Order in any way that they could and had been keeping a constant ear out for anything that sounded suspicious. This had led to a few embarrassing situations that had forced Neville and Hermione to use their powers as Head Boy and Girl a lot more regularly than they perhaps would have hoped to. It would seem not all people sneaking out after curfew were secretly conspiring with the Dark Lord.

Eventually however, the stress of NEWTs caught up to them and soon they found themselves focussing more intently on their books than their mission. Even Ron was not immune, as captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team he had found free time hard to come by. When he was not planning a training session with the team, he was furiously catching up on his homework.

If Hermione had had the time to sit back and take this in she would no doubt have been exceptionally proud that her boyfriend had finally started to knuckle down. As it was, her heavy load of subjects along with her Head Girl duties meant that the two rarely had more than a few hours together a week. It was tough on both of them and she was starting to worry. Their relationship had always required a modicum of work from both sides, and happy as she was with him, she couldn't see them lasting the year if they could not find more time together.

She sighed, glancing at the time. Stretching wearily she closed the book in front of her and got up from the hard wooden chair in the library which she had claimed as her own for the past two hours.

At least when Christmas finally came around they would get some time together without any of the stresses of school, hopefully that would be enough to keep the two of them alive a little longer.

Trying to push the thought out of her mind she made her way out of the library and up towards the defence classroom. Two hours with Moody awaited her, joy of joys.

Defence had always been one of the classes she found most difficult, admittedly she was still one of the better students, but she lacked the instinct for it that Neville, and to some extent Ron, had for it, much to her chagrin.

She tended to get by in defence through a wider knowledge of spells than most of her classmates, but she was brutally aware that when applying the knowledge in practice, she tended to revert to casting everything she knew that was relevant, attempting to overcome the problem through brute force. It worked, mostly, but she wouldn't lie to herself and say it was as impressive as the methods of those truly gifted in the subject.

Neville had the knack for it. When he had to defend himself from attack, be it in the form of a duel or a dark creature, he knew, more or less, the best course of action immediately. When presented with an unknown spell bearing down on him, he would know to a high level of success whether he could shield it or whether he had to move out of the way. It frustrated her to no end, how could he look at a spell he had never seen before and make that decision?

Hermione in that situation always found herself diving out of the way of the oncoming curse and opening herself up to an easy assault from her opponent. Granted, the last time she had had the chance to display this had been during 5th year with the DA in full swing, but she wasn't going to pretend that she would miraculously have improved any since then. It appeared to be a trait that some people just had, and Neville had it in spades, and for once, no amount of books would let her catch up.

Turning into the defence classroom she found the object of her musings sat in one of the desks against the right hand wall. Seeing her come in he greeted her and motioned to a seat behind him.

Taking the seat offered she noticed for the first time that the room was different than it had been before. The room had been artificially expanded lengthways so the teachers desk and board were a full 20 meters back the first desks. In the empty space between a long dueling platform had been erected. If you did not turn to look towards the front of the room when entering you would completely miss the change in the layout.

"Rumours have been going round all day that Moody has something special planned for the rest of the year now that we've caught up to where we needed to be on the NEWTs " Neville said, turning round in his seat and noticing her wide eyes.

"3 guesses what it is" he continued, a small grin on his face.

Hermione put her head in her hands.

'Duelling, brilliant.' she thought wearily.

Neville let out a chuckle.

"Don't worry Hermione, it's not in the NEWT exam, I checked already" he said to reassure her.

"Whats not in the NEWT exam?" Ron's voice interrupted as he walked into the room, as oblivious to the duelling platform as she had been when she entered.

"Duelling" Neville said, eyes full of excitement.

"Duelling, what do you mean duel... oh" Having sat down next to Hermione he too noticed the changes that had been made to the room since they had last been in it. A determined look passed across his face before he casually turned to greet his girlfriend with a quick kiss. It was only there for a moment but Hermione didn't miss it, he was always trying to prove himself in some way, it was a fault of his, and it seemed that duelling would not be an exception.

"Ugh" Neville exclaimed next to them, turning away in disgust.

"Hey, I have to watch you and my sister go at it, don't you complain!" Ron said glaring at Neville in mock anger.

Before Neville had a chance to reply Professor Moody entered the room and let off a loud bang from the tip of his wand. Startled the students turned to the doorway.

"Well, why have none of you got your books out?" Moody said, his magical eye flitting around the room taking in each occupant in turn.

"Page 94, Enrupturing curse, I want you to know it, and I want you to know how to defend against it and deal with its effects" He rasped out, seemingly ignoring the massive duelling platform behind him.

The students looked around at each other, slightly confused. Surely they were going to be duelling, or else why was the duelling platform setup?

Moody just stared at them until a noise broke the deafening silence.

Turning around Hermione saw Harry Potter drop his book on his desk and turn to the relevant page. Scowling internally she turned round to do the same and the rest of the students soon followed suit.

The next half hour was spent merely reading about the curse, with numerous students shooting discrete glances towards the front of the room where Moody stood, leaning against the raised platform behind him. After he was convinced they had all read the relevant material he banished the desks to the back of the room and conjured targets against one of the walls.

Each of them then took turns attempting the spell on the target under his watchful eye, he corrected those who struggled. He was a harsh teacher but an efficient one, and Hermione would probably consider him the best teacher of Defence she had had in her time at Hogwarts.

A half hour before the end of the double period he called a stop to their practice, by this point many of the students had almost forgotten the presence of the duelling platform, although Hermione certainly had not, and neither had Ron or Neville if their repeated glances in its direction were anything to go by.

"I expect you to be proficient with casting that particular curse by the next time we have a lesson here, next lesson we are focussing on shielding against it, Protego is not enough for a curse of this strength and I'll be introducing a few new shield charms that will become important for the next batch of curses we look at." Moody said as everyone put down their wands.

"Those who are not able to cast the curse to my satisfaction by next lesson will get the first chance to learn to defend themselves against it." He continued, sneering slightly in the direction of Parvati Patil, who had been having the most trouble with casting it.

Hermione was not sure if she agreed morally with the tactic, learn the spell or get to attempt to apply completely new knowledge to defend yourself against it, but it couldn't be denied that it produced results. It was rare nowadays that people came to the lessons unable to cast the spell they had learnt the week before.

"A few of the more observant of you may have noticed that I've made a couple of small changes to the room." Moody said, ignoring the look of fear on Parvati's face, he got a few nervous titters in response but for the most part the room looked on with either determination or dread.

"Some of you sharp minded individuals may have put 2 and 2 together and figured out what my little surprise is, and before anyone points it out, I am well aware that duelling is not a part of the NEWT exam, I don't care." he carried on, gesturing slightly behind him as he did so.

"The purpose of this exercise is not to prepare you for NEWTs, it is so that I can assess whether you are a good dueller, or a liability. For those of you hoping to become an Auror you better pray that I don't consider you a liability, because my assessment of your skill is more important to the Ministry than any individual NEWT you are taking."

A strained silence met this declaration. Looking around the room Hermione noticed a few relieved faces but far more nervous ones. Not many jobs were insistent on a Defence against the Dark Arts NEWT, and most of the students in the class were probably hoping to enter the Auror Corps or to at least become a hit-wizard when they graduated.

Ron, she noticed, suddenly looked a bit pale, his mind had been set on becoming an Auror since 5th year when he realised he didn't have the talent to take his quidditch to a professional level. Up to now she knew he had considered his potions NEWT to be the biggest obstacle standing in his way, but having Mad-Eye Moody assess your ability as a dueller was not a small matter. Neville at least seemed to be taking it in his stride, his eyes still had that determined glint as they focused on Moody.

He wasn't the only one. Malfoy was equally as intent on Moody's words, but his eyes kept flickering over towards Neville. There was no doubt in Hermione's mind that he wasn't interested in impressing the old Auror, after all, he was wealthy enough that he would never have to work. No, Malfoy was focussed on one thing and one thing only, taking down Neville.

And it looked like he would get his chance.

"Longbottom, Malfoy, you two are first. We have just enough time for 3 duels so don't pussyfoot about, the aim is to win and as long as its legal I don't care. If you're good at charms, use your charms. If you can conjure like no other then damn well conjure yourself to victory. The Aurors don't care how you win as long as you are realistic and effective." A couple of people seemed a little shocked and how blasé Moody was being about the duels, but Malfoy and Neville were oblivious, staring each other down across the classroom.

"I want one of you at each end of the platform, the rest of you need to stand along the edge. There are simple wards in place to protect against most spells but stay out of the direct line of fire, wards have been known to fail." Mad Eye continued, eyeing the two boys warily, perhaps slightly regretting his choice of opponents.

Malfoy stood and strode quickly to the near end of the platform and climbed up, forcing Neville to walk all the way to the other end of the room and mirror his movements. It was a small personal victory for Malfoy and really nothing more than a small slight, but she had no doubt he intended it.

As a group the rest of the students spread themselves around the two sides of the platform, looking up slightly to the two students.

Moody went over to his desk at the back of the room and touched his wand to a small spherical crystal. With a 'whoosh!' the wards snapped into place around the stage, a barely visible blue mist the only sign they were active before it vanished into thin air. Wards weren't supposed to be obvious, so it was no surprise that the mist didn't stay, but it still made Hermione uneasy.

"Right, on three."

One.

"One."

Two.

"Two."

Three.

And they began.

Malfoy opened aggressively, firing two quick cutting curses, one at Neville's centre of mass and the other slightly to his left in the hope that he would dodge.

He was testing Neville's defences and Neville knew it. Quickly summoning a shield to take the initial cutter he ignored the other one entirely and fired a bludgeoner back, followed by a bone breaker and a curse Hermione thought looked like a pain curse, not the kind you would find in a school library but also not something that would find you gracing the Wizengamot with your presence. He wasn't going to be holding back then.

In the mean time Draco had gotten off a curse of his own, one that Hermione did not recognise, but had quickly had to rethink, eyes widening as Neville unleashed on him. Shielding the bludgeoner, he took advantage of the lengthier wand movement associated with the bone breaker and conjured a thin wooden wall between him and the curses.

There were short gasps next to Hermione as people saw him do this, the wall would never stop either of the curses baring down on him, but that was not Malfoys intention. Obscuring Nevilles view briefly he dodged to the left as soon as he was sure the wall was in place, peeking his wand out to fire a skin-shredder, a particularly borderline curse, at Neville's slightly exposed side. Neville looked surprised, having stood almost entirely still through the confrontation so far he stumbled to the left, just managing to bring up a sliver shield that crackled as it took the brunt of the purple curse.

Seeing an opening, Malfoy jumped back on the offensive, swinging his wand in an intricate pattern he summoned ropes that latched onto Neville's legs, pulling him to one knee. Keeping him on the defensive he followed with a quick bone breaker before pulling his wand in a wide arc across his body, sending 30 odd birds in the direction of the collapsed Neville, obscuring the stage. Using the visual obstruction he began firing curses to where he knew Neville to be, knowing that his target was immobilised and would not have enough time to raise the correct shield to defend against his curses.

Or at least he thought he knew, suddenly he was under attack from his left hand side, a bludgeoner and a piercing curse followed by the pain curse forced him to hurl himself to the side, unable to get a shield up in time.

Neville had somehow dispelled the robes and had used the distraction of the birds to flank Malfoy to great effect. Foregoing the bone-breaker, not risking Malfoy using the downtime it provided again, Neville fell into a rhythm, repeating the other 3 curses randomly as he advanced on Malfoy, who was now truly on the defensive.

Shields flickered in and out of existence as Malfoy desperately tried to keep up with the assault, but Neville was slowly making ground on the boy, shortening the distance between them and the time he had to react. It was inevitable that the fight came to an end not long after that. A bludgeoner hit Malfoy in the chest, sending him hurtling against the wards, and a quick expelliarmus sent his wand flying into Neville's hand.

With a bang! from his wand, Moody signalled the end of the duel.

"Woah, go Neville!" Ron's voice rung out in the silence.

Hermione was in shock, that had been brutal. She had expected Malfoy to be the more offensive competitor but Neville had taken it to a whole other level. Where Malfoy had been inventive, Neville had been simplistic. At the time Hermione had thought Malfoy's tactics exceptionally clever, playing to probabilities and obscuring the field of battle, but Neville had chosen focus on simple direct assaults to grind Malfoy down, ignoring his tricks as much as possible. Discounting the expelliarmus at the end and however he got out of the ropes, he'd used a total of four curses and two shields throughout the fight! It was evident that the focus of his summer training had not been, on broadening his knowledge of offensive and defensive magic as she had thought, but rather on perfecting and fine tuning a very small arsenal of curses and shields. It was disgustingly effective.

Breaking herself out of her thoughts she realised that she had completely missed Moody's analysis of the duel and Ron nudging her in the ribs brought her attention back to the stage where Daphne Greengrass and Terry Boot were currently standing across from each other. Less interested in the outcome of this bout, she looked across to stare pensively at Neville, leaning against the wall the other side of Ron. His eyes were focussed on the two on stage but he had a small satisfied smile on his lips. He'd changed over the summer, Dumbledore's death had affected him more than he let on, she was sure of it.

This fight was much less impressive than the previous one, neither Daphne or Terry were on the same level and the pace was slower, much more two people exchanging spells as opposed to a legitimate duel.

Daphne won of course, Terry was one of the few in the class not aiming for a career in law-enforcement. Instead he had set his sights on working at St. Mungos. For most of the wards in the hospital, a degree of knowledge about dark curses and their effects was necessary. The requirements for new trainee doctors reflected this, E at NEWT Defence against the Dark Arts or above. Hermione knew this because it was one of the many career choices she had considered once she left school.

It was a fluffed shield that did Terry in, and a stunner hit him on the left shoulder, knocking him out cold. Daphne looked relieved to be done with the duel and quickly revived him before jumping off the stage to join Blaise Zabini on the other side of the room. Terry got up gingerly and slipped off the side of the stage to rejoin his friends and Moody began his analysis of their bout.

Unimpressive was the summary. Terry didn't look bothered but Daphne wasn't too happy. Looking over to Neville she saw he looked almost disappointed.

Further along the stage still she saw Harry Potter looking bored out of his skull, staring absently at his nails.

What was with him? Regardless of what you thought of duelling, it was far more interesting than normal lessons, even she was prepared to admit that.

"Granger, Potter, you're up to finish, try and do better than these two" Moody's voice broke through her musings and she looked up quickly to him.

Shit, she was going to have to duel. Looking back towards Harry she saw him looking at her with a blank face. Motioning to the stage he fished his wand out of his pocket and made his way to the far end of the hall, leaving her to walk a couple of feet to her left and clamber up onto the slightly bouncy floor of the platform.

"C'mon Hermione, you got this" Ron said encouragingly as she left his side, giving her hand a quick squeeze.

Harry was the first to make a move, sending a stunner towards her as soon as Moody said three. She was slightly surprised by his aggressiveness but a quick blue shield in front of her bounced the curse back towards him before it struck her down. Inwardly she was quite pleased with that, there weren't many spells you could reflect with a shield, and those you could required more complex shields than the standard fare.

Seeing him stumble to the left slightly to avoid the rebounded spell, cutting him off mid incantation, she threw a quick expelliarmus to maintain her advantage and watched with delight as it raced towards him, he wasn't going to have time to react!

A blue sheet jumped to life in front of him and her spell crashed against it. Somehow he had gotten a shield up. Dumbfounded she almost didn't react to the bludgeoner that he followed up with.

Squeaking she unceremoniously threw herself to the floor and suddenly found herself on the defensive.

Another bludgeoner struck her shield as she quickly got to her feet and she found herself backing up slowly down the platform as Harry sent spells hurtling down towards her.

Attempting to regain her composure as she rebounded a stunner towards him she started looking for an opening in his attack. What she found surprised her.

He was slow, almost stupidly so. His incantations were pronounced loudly and clearly and his wand movements were sluggish and forceful. In fact, as she absorbed another disarmer on her shield and watched him prepare a piercing curse, some of his wand movements were downright bad. Instead of flowing through the twirl and onto the flick that sent the curse towards the opponent, he began flowing and then jerked, as if afraid to let instinct take over.

Confused, Hermione decided to end the duel as quickly as possible. Rebounding another stunner towards him she shifted to the side quickly and jabbed her wand at him and followed up with a disarmer. Sure, both spells could be dealt with easily by a basic shield charm, but it put her firmly back on the offensive, giving her time to push him back.

Settling into a rhythm she attempted to emulate Neville's assault on Malfoy earlier, sticking to 3 or 4 spells and driving her opponent back across the platform.

Harry for his part seemed to be stumbling his way out of the way of every single one, a slip here, a hastily conjured shield there and she found herself quickly getting frustrated. She wanted this duel to end.

There was only about 15 feet between the two of them now and Hermione could clearly make out his eyes, watching her carefully, as he stumbled unscathed from each of her attacks. Suddenly they flicked towards Moody and she almost crowed in relief, using his quick lapse in concentration to snap off an unusually quick stunner that hit him in the ribs as he raised his wand to block it. With a soft thud he fell back onto the floor.

Hermione sighed, thankful for his lapse in concentration. How he had managed to last so long in the duel with spellwork as shoddy as his she would never know. She was glad she wasn't one of the ones looking to join the Aurors, she doubted either of them had impressed Moody with _that_ duel.

Turning to the old Auror to await his dismantling of her duelling style she found him staring intently at the prone form of Harry Potter, magical eye unmoving and his normal eye narrowed.

Neville also had his eyes fixed on him, his face contorted into a mask of confusion.

Why did she get the feeling she was missing something?

* * *

Brynden Thomas sighed as he made his way through the Ministry atrium, thankfully empty at this time of night, and pressed the button to call one of the Ministry lifts.

He hated being an Auror sometimes.

Entering the lift, his hand trailed down the buttons until his fingers stopped them self carelessly at the bottom. Floor 9, the Department of Mysteries.

Pressing it he watched as the doors shut and felt the lift slowly begin to descend into the bowels of the Ministry.

It had been what, over two years since the incident? That the bloody Unspeakables were still so jittery around the Veil that they wanted someone to watch it at all times was ridiculous. Besides, wasn't that their bloody job? Why did they need to recruit Aurors to do it, hard working Aurors who had better things to be doing with their time than babysitting an inanimate object.

Well, mostly inanimate.

He wasn't going to skimp out on it though, not after the bollocking they got last year when those kids broke into the department, especially since someone supposedly fell through the damn thing.

He shuddered a bit remembering it. Scrimgeour had still been head at that time and he had gone mental at them. Turned out three of the Aurors that were supposed to have been on duty that week hadn't turned up at all, and one of the days noone turned up, the kids chose to turn up instead.

The looks of anxious relief on a few of his colleagues faces suggested they were happy the inquiry didn't go back further than a week. Brynden would be lying if he said he hadn't skimped on some of his duties but he liked to reassure himself that he had always at least turned up, even if he had spent most of his time away from the Veil.

The three Aurors who had skipped their duty had been fired on the spot, and it was rumoured their pensions were slashed massively. Yeah, Scrimgeour was not someone you wanted to fuck with. Now he was Minister...

Needless to say the Aurors did their job properly now, even if they didn't like it.

The lift reached the bottom floor and he wandered the familiar route towards the veil, vaguely taking in the rest of the department as he did so.

Entering the vast open room he looked with amusement at the previous watchman who was fast asleep, magazine splayed across his lap.

Sighing he turned his eyes towards the Veil itself. Why did it even need to be watched? The way the Unspeakables talked about the incident you'd think it had been a supremely important magical event, but from what he could make out from the rumour mills, it was more of an unexplained accident.

Supposedly the normally quiet but creepy voices you could hear if you got close to the thing started screaming loud enough to attract the attention of the Unspeakables working in the brain room. One of them had been dumb enough to actually get close to the thing, though nothing on earth could tempt Brynden to get closer than 10 feet away from that bloody archway. It was unnatural.

To cut a long story short the Veil reacted somehow, though whether it was because of the Unspeakable or not they never did find out, and it let off a massive burst of magical energy that brained the poor guy against the wall.

SInce then the Aurors had been stuck with the stupid watch duty, though as far as he could see it was unnecessary. Just send a memo round to the Unspeakables, 'if the Veil is acting weird, don't get close!' Bam! Problem solved! And no wasting valuable Auror time, everyone's happy.

Resigned to his fate Brynden woke the previous watchman who had the decency to look sheepish, taking the magazine from the man without asking he watched enviously as his compatriot walked out of the room to freedom. Settling down into the chair he began to read, it was going to be a long couple of hours.

The Veil swayed softly in a non-existent breeze.

* * *

Eh, I'm pretty sure my writing could use some work, but the only way to improve is through practice so, here we go, practice.

All reviews are welcome, the more critical the better. Hopefully I'll get another 10k words or so up within a week and the plot will advance a bit more.

Till then, thanks for (hopefully) reading.

C


	2. A Sum of Small Things

**Chapter Two - A Sum of Small Things**

Dinner that evening was an enthusiastic affair, the duels were big news amongst the seventh years and since many had chosen to drop the class after OWLs, detailed re-enactments were required to sate the appetites of the masses.

The big story was, unsurprisingly, the duel between Neville and Malfoy. It was an impressive bout, Hermione did not have any illusions about that, but as was the way with such things, the story had evolved to become far more. If Seamus was to be believed, Neville had simply dodged all of Malfoys attacks, staring him down across the platform as Malfoy sweated, unable to land a hit on the passive Boy-who-lived. There were many problems with this story, not least that such a tactic was practically suicide in a proper duel. To dodge spells in that way consistently would require super-human agility or some sort of precognitive power that, despite all his positive attributes, Neville lacked. Even were that the case, placing yourself on the defensive in a duel was generally setting yourself up for failure, it gave the opponent too much freedom in their attacks, after all, curses were not the only way of bringing an opponent down. Had Neville been doing as Seamus said, Malfoy's conjured ropes still would have brought him down and suddenly his tactic would have been rendered impossible.

Nevertheless the Gryffindor table seemed to be lapping it up, and Hermione could only shake her head in dismay. It wasn't until Seamus began to go into great detail about how Neville had proceeded to walk towards towards Malfoy and punch him squarely in the nose that she saw any disbelieving faces. Seamus wasn't even there for Merlin's sake, he dropped Defence against the Dark Arts after his OWLs.

Had Neville been sat with them he would undoubtedly have denied Seamus' ridiculous fantasy but he had met Ginny outside the great hall as they walked down together and, after making his apologies, had headed off in the direction of what looked suspiciously like a broom closet.

Shaking her head ruefully, Hermione looked across at her own boyfriend, Ron had been no help at all in denying the rumours that were being spread. In fact, it looked like he was taking far too much pleasure in hearing them recounted again and again.

"You know this is a load of crock, stop grinning so stupidly." She muttered to him as he listened gleefully to Parvati's story, at least she had actually been there Hermione's supposed.

"Heh, yeah, but it's fun listening to everyone put Malfoy down." Ron said happily.

"Besides, it looks like Malfoy is having a grand old time telling his side of the story, and you can bet it doesn't end with Neville beating the bloody pulp out of him like he did." He continued, slapping that silly grin on his face again before returning his attention to Parvati's story.

Looking across to the Slytherin table Hermione saw that he was right. Malfoy must have had at least half the table listening to him, some of the younger years staring at him with wide eyes and open mouths, as he gestured wildly around himself, face retaining its confidant smirk throughout.

She heard the gasp from across the room as whatever he said provoked a shocked reaction in his attentive audience. She saw him gesture across to the Gryffindor table and the students turn around to look towards them with varying looks of contempt and shock. Catching her eye briefly he gave her a quick smirk that none of his audience saw.

Yes, Malfoy was definitely twisting the story to his advantage, it was almost a natural reaction for him it seemed. It was doubtful that he could have claimed that he had won the duel, especially with so many witnesses present. But he must have known that the stories of the duel would grow out of proportion and had deigned to add his own version to the mix. From the way the Slytherin's reacted, it would seem that he had decided to use the tried and tested 'He cheated!' defence, and it looked like he had done it well.

He wasn't the only one basking in the attention of his housemates. Those not listening to him were either listening to Daphne tell of her duel, or, for those who had sided with Montgomery, watching him in disgust. Daphne seemed to have taken rather well to the interest of her housemates and was talking quite animatedly with the group of students listening, obviously basking in the attention. It was funny, she hadn't seemed too thrilled with the duel in the lesson.

Even Terry Boot seemed to have rather taken to the attention. He was no duelist and he had been defeated rather soundly, nevertheless, the Ravenclaws had obviously bugged him into telling his side of the story and it seemed he had given in without too much fuss.

Ravenclaw, as a house, tended to be less interested in such gossip and rumours, given that the student that fitted the houses' personality were the ones who prided themselves on logic and learning. Nevertheless, whilst some remained stoically uninterested, it was with a more than passing interest that a group of ten or so students, mostly in the 6th and 7th year, listened to him speak.

It was only the Hufflepuff table that didn't seem to have been affected by the events of the Defence lesson. A few had come over to ask Seamus for his version of Neville's duel or for her to tell them about her duel with Harry, but there didn't seem to be much discussion at the table.

Hermione supposed that Harry probably hadn't wanted to talk about it, being beaten so soundly was not exactly fun, and Hufflepuffs, as a whole, tended to err on the side of truthfullness. Despite her mistrust of him, she couldn't see the green eyed wizard twisting his story the way Malfoy was.

Looking up and down the table for the boy she was startled to notice that he wasn't there. Turning to Ron quickly she nudged him in the ribs, just as he was about to dig in to some Yorkshire Puddings.

"Ow, what the hell Hermione?" he said, grimacing.

"Oh quit whining you baby, have you seen Harry since we got out of Defence?" she asked, eyes still scanning the room.

Ron looked confused but before he had a chance to reply, someone else did for him.

"Probably didn't want to show his face after you trashed him." A grinning Neville sat down across from the two of them, Ginny on his right arm.

"Hey Neville, the man of the moment!" Seamus called from down the table. "Come tell us how you broke Malfoy's nose wouldya?"

Neville rolled his eyes. "Seems like you don't need me to tell it mate, you've been doing fine on your own!" He replied, to a couple of laughs from those listening in and a flush of red on Seamus' cheeks.

As Seamus responded Ginny looked over to Hermione and raised an eyebrow.

"I guess Seamus is being Seamus again, right?" she asked, an amused glint in her eye.

Hermione rubbed her temples wearily while Ron just laughed.

"At this rate Neville will have taken on the entirety of Slytherin _and_ Snape by the end of the day, and beaten them all. Without a wand." she said a little testily.

Ginny laughed loudly, attracting Nevilles attention.

"What?" He asked, looking between her and Hermione.

"Nothing, just discussing your duel." Ginny said with a wide smile.

"Hmm..."

"Seriously though Neville, I was really impressed, I never expected you to be so..." Hermione trailed off, searching for a nice way to put it.

Neville for his part looked flattered and slightly amused.

"Aggressive?" he supplied.

Hermione nodded, although secretly she didn't think aggressive quite covered it, it was more than an aggressive tactic, it was a brutal assault.

"Yeah, you really took it to him mate, the look on his face when you were pushing him back was priceless!" Ron continued for her.

"I'd love to hear it from you two, Neville's told me already but he does have a tendency to be a little too modest sometimes" Ginny said, giving her boyfriend an amused smile as he started to protest.

Seeing Seamus' ears perk up at the statement however, he quickly changed tactics.

"Enough about me, I wanna talk to Hermione about her duel!" Neville said, diverting conversation away from himself and leaving a disappointed Seamus to return to his food.

"Actually yeah Hermione, I haven't heard how you did." Ginny said, turning her attention back towards her. "Who did you duel?"

"Oh, Moody got me to duel Harry Potter, he's in Hufflepuff." She said lamely.

"She beat him of course." Ron said proudly, putting his arm around her and squeezing her into a one-armed hug.

"Yeah, well, he wasn't very good. Nearly caught me by surprise a few times but his spell work was atrocious." she said, trying to be modest.

Ginny looked like she was going to press for more details but Neville spoke first.

"Yes, it was, wasn't it?" He said pensively, gazing at brick on the wall.

Breaking his gaze and seeing the other three looking at him expectantly he continued.

"It's just, his spellwork was really, really bad." he started rather sheepishly. "I mean, first year bad. None of it was smooth or anything and I don't know what happened."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked in confusion.

"Well, I guess you probably don't know this but I knew Harry before Hogwarts, Professor Lupin would drop him round my house a few times to play while him and my Gran talked and we'd play a bit, pretending we were doing magic and stuff. Nice guy really..." he mused

"Hang on, I thought he lived with Muggles?" Ron interrupted.

"Oh, yeah, he probably still does, but Lupin used to drop in a lot to check on him I think, and to take him to see his parents at um, yeah" Neville said carefully, obviously not willing to divulge too much of Harry's private life to them.

Hermione could hazard a guess as to where Harry's parents were. She had read extensively about the history of the Wizarding world since she had first been introduced to it 7 years ago, and she had read more about the first war than any other period. Whilst most of the interest of historians was focussed on the Longbottom family and the tragedy that resulted in the fall of Voldemort, some did choose to expand their scope to mention the retaliatory attacks from Death Eaters in the weeks following his downfall.

It was barely more than a paragraph's mention in most of the books, but it had stuck with Hermione since she had first read it in her second year. James and Lily Potter, tortured to insanity under the Cruciatus curse by Bellatrix Lestrange. The thought made her squeamish, and she suddenly found the food in front of her unappetising.

"Anyway, I hung about with Harry a bit during first year, before I really go to know you guys," Neville said, obviously avoiding going into any more detail on Harry's personal life. "and he was never _that_ bad at magic. Hell, he got that colour changing charm before I did, I had to ask you for help with it Hermione!" He said, giving her a grin.

"I mean, we kinda grew distant after first year and I haven't really been keeping an eye on him, but something must have happened. I can't believe he could have gotten worse since then." He finished, confusion evident in his voice.

"Well we are doing harder magic now, maybe he just couldn't keep up?" Ginny supplied.

"Yeah but it's not the spells that he's struggling with so much as the basics of spellcasting, you know the stuff that is standard, no matter what you are doing." Neville said.

"Maybe he's just bad under pressure?" Ginny tried again.

"Maybe..." Neville replied. Hermione was unconvinced, someone who was bad under pressure wouldn't have managed to get the required grade on the OWL practical to get onto the NEWT course. Before she had time to say this however Ron spoke up, a thought had obviously just occurred to him.

"Hey, wasn't he one of the people that had to go to Mungo's after Cedric... uh" he trailed off, not really wanting to say it.

Neville nodded grimly. "Yeah, him, those 7th years and that 3rd year. He was the only one that wasn't back before the end of the year. I didn't think him and Cedric knew each other to be honest." he said, obviously still uncomfortable talking about it.

"Well, maybe that was it..." Ron said.

"Maybe. Would make sense." Neville replied, lapsing into silence.

Hermione wasn't so sure. It seemed that the more she found out about Harry Potter, the more questions were raised.

* * *

"We are supposed to be patrolling, Ron." Hermione said as he dragged her up the stairs.

"We are patrolling, just checking the astronomy tower now, see. After all, everyone knows it's a favourite haunt for couples!" He said with a cheeky grin.

Arriving at the base of the ladder leading up to the tower lookout he made a big show of listening carefully, much to Hermione's amusement.

"Hmm, can't hear anything, but I think we better go up and check anyway." he said, giving her a wink before jumping up the ladder two steps at a time.

"You are incorrigible." Hermione said to his back as he climbed, he just laughed in response and disappeared.

Shaking her head ruefully, Hermione began to make the ascent. As her head poked out the top of the hatch she looked around to see Ron grinning down at her.

Climbing the last couple of steps to the top she had time to brush herself off before Ron grabbed her hand.

"No one here Hermione, guess I was mistaken. No one but you and me." He whispered in her ear, he was enjoying the act far too much in her opinion.

Turning swiftly to face him and pushing him against the wall she met his lips fiercely.

"You know, it would have been a lot quicker to just ask me to come up here with you." She said huskily, pulling him in close.

"Wouldn't be anywhere near as fun now would it?" Ron replied, eyes glinting in amusement and lust.

"Shut up, Ron" She said, smashing her lips against his in another searing kiss.

An indeterminate amount of time later she carefully extracted herself from his limbs and rose from the floor where they had inevitably found themselves.

Moving over to the edge of the tower she looked out over Hogwarts' grounds with tired, happy eyes. The moon was waning gibbous in the sky and the vast empty space between the castle and the forest was illuminated in a soft glow.

It was still early-ish, probably no later than half eleven. On the edge of the forest she could see light still coming from Hagrid's hut, though it was a dull deep red, like that of dying embers. It would not be long before the fire went out and the only light would be from the moon and the students still awake in the castle.

The grass on the grounds seemed to be swaying in a soft breeze, it didn't seem to reach them up here, the air was still, silent and tranquil.

"Pretty cool, isn't it?" Ron said as he rested his arms on the railing next to her, gazing out towards the forest.

Hermione could only nod in agreement, his talent for understatement was a strong as ever it seemed.

"I'm going to miss this castle." She said softly, not taking her eyes off the swaying grass. "It's been my home for so long, next year is going to be hard."

Ron nodded in understanding and wrapped his arm around her tightly.

"You'll manage, you've got great things ahead of you 'mione, someday maybe you'll come back here, you strike me as the teacher type." He said sincerely, normally he would have joked about it but she could tell he meant it. The idea gave her an odd sense of elation.

"Being a teacher isn't exactly flashy though is it, I always hoped to make a difference in the world, somehow I don't see teaching as way to do that." She voiced her doubts, but as she spoke them they sounded silly to her ears.

"Eh don't worry about that, I'll be flashy enough for the both of us! Can't get much flashier than a world-renowned Auror now can you." Ron said, winking at her confidently.

A bubble of laughter rose in her throat and she giggled softly, leaning her head against his chest.

"I've missed this." She murmured.

"I know, I have too. It's been... hard" Ron said, voice getting strained at the end.

"We'll work on it." Hermione said with perhaps more confidence than she felt. Ron looked at her face for a long time, simply taking her in. She felt his gaze on her as she stared carefully at the forbidden forest, unwilling to meet his gaze in case he saw in her the fear she felt. Occasions like this were wonderful, brilliant even, but they were few and far between nowadays, and she was worried she was beginning to lose him.

"'Maybe we could work on it a bit more now then." Ron said, breaking the awkward silence with false bravado. Just as he turned her face towards him to pull her into a kiss Hermione caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye.

"Hang on, stop." She said quickly and perhaps a bit too forcefully, causing Ron to jerk back in shock.

"Sorry, I just thought..." He said awkwardly, although there was unease evident in his voice.

"No it's not that, I just thought I saw someone going towards the forbidden forest." She said, eyes scanning the ground frantically. In doing so she missed the disbelieving look that flashed across Ron's face.

"Okay Hermione..." He said softly. "Look, our patrol finished twenty minutes ago, and I'm quite tired, so uh, I guess I'll see you tomorrow." With that he quickly began making his way down the ladder and out of the tower.

Hermione murmured her agreement before realising what had happened. She turned quickly to stop him, to try and apologise and convince him that she wasn't just trying to avoid him, but he was already gone, footsteps echoing up through the tower as he disappeared into the castle.

She let out a frustrated growl. The night had been so perfect until then, and it all fell apart so quickly, why couldn't she have just kissed him back. There was blatantly no one out there and she had just imagined it.

But suddenly, there they were. Hugging the dark side of one of the rolling hills, using the shadows to conceal themselves was a broom rider, drifting softly, ever closer to the forbidden forest. The fire in Hagrid's hut had obviously died out, the hut was now dark and silent.

Hermione watched as the mysterious broom-rider drifted slowly and carefully past the hut, dark robes fluttering softly in the breeze that swayed the grass. The rider's hood was up and it was too dark to make out the colour of their robes. As she pondered on what to do she looked on in shock as the rider began to pick up speed, covering the ground between Hagrid's hut and the edge of the forest in a few short seconds.

Without so much as a sound the rider disappeared into the tree line at full speed. Whoever it was, they were in a hurry.

Determined to catch them in the hope it would make it easier to reconcile with Ron, Hermione thought about her options. She would never catch them in the forest, especially not on a broom. Besides, it looked like they knew what they were doing and they were unlikely to be in any danger, she hoped. She would have to catch them as they were coming back into the school.

Making up her mind, she adjusted her robes and quickly climbed down the ladder and out of the Astronomy tower. Rushing through the halls and down the stairs she made her way quickly to the entrance to the castle.

Flashing her badge quickly at an enraged Flich as he shouted after her she soon found herself facing the great oak doors that marked the entrance. Whoever it was in the forest had obviously snuck past Filch to get out of the castle, and she wasn't prepared to trust the old squib to catch them making their way back in.

Setting herself up by one of the large windows next to the doors she conjured a rickety stool and began to wait.

The night was quiet and the grass lay still on the ground, no longer waving in the breeze.

She waited.

Just as she was beginning to think that the rider was gone for good a loud squawking of birds awoke her senses suddenly, bringing her gaze away from the treeline and upwards.

A large flock was rapidly making their way upwards and away from the tops of the trees, scattering in all directions. The reason for their rapid exit soon became apparent as the broom rider burst at full speed from the trees and raced towards the castle, robes waving violently in the wind.

Hermione watched in horror as they completely ignored the front doors of Hogwarts and directed themselves around towards the back of the castle.

Cursing her stupidity she ran to the oak doors and yanked them open, grabbing her wand as she did so, a spell already forming on her lips. Rushing out the front she snapped her wand up and let loose towards the flier, who was rising steadily, racing towards the far side of the castle.

Her spell was wild, flashing no closer than 10 meters to the rider as they raced by, lighting up the sky with its unearthly glow. She was almost glad her spell did not hit, she did not know why she had chosen a stunner. If she had made contact, she never would have been able to stop the fall of the rider before they hit the ground.

Bringing her wand up for another attempt but unable to think of any spell that would be useful in this situation she glared angrily up at the mysterious figure.

Watching them carefully she saw them turn their head and look directly at her, considering her carefully. Hermione's breath caught in her throat as she saw a flash of green before the rider disappeared behind one of the parapets.

Letting out a breath she didn't know she had been holding she slumped, standing defeated on the pathway leading up to the open gates of the old castle.

So much for not making any overt moves.

* * *

"I'm telling you, it was Harry!" Hermione said, exasperated.

She had returned to Gryffindor tower the night before, mind swirling with possibilities and theories. She had staunchly refused to think about her argument, if you could call it that with Ron, preferring to throw herself into the mystery of the identity of the rider. She knew she was doing it, it was a recurring fault of hers. When she didn't want to face a problem head on she threw herself into her other projects with a vengeance, attempting to convince herself that she was being productive, useful, rather than just avoiding an issue.

She was too clever to truly lie to herself this way though, and she knew that she needed to speak to Ron, to reconcile with him and repair the damage she had done. She couldn't though, she didn't know what to say to reassure him of her intentions in that moment in the astronomy tower. How did she convince him that she hadn't pulled away from him because she was struggling to deal with their relationship when in truth, she was struggling. It may not have been the reason behind her actions at the time, but when the emotions you are silently accused of ring true in your mind, defending yourself begins to seem futile. So she had kept her silence, and he had kept his.

Thus she found herself sitting across from him in the common room, having barely spoken to him all day, with the unenviable position of convincing him that there had even been a rider, let alone that it was who she suspected it was.

Ron sat with a stiff back and accusing eyes, eyes that looked anywhere but Hermione, but she felt the full weight of the accusations all the same. Neville slouched next to Ron, oblivious to the silent tension between the two, eyes engrossed on another book of battle tactics, barely paying attention to the argument that Hermione was one-sidedly presenting, even though he had been included in the conversation from the start.

He was becoming so distant, only Ginny seemed to still maintain regular contact with him nowadays. Of course her and Ron still saw him in classes and on occasions like this in the common room, but the golden trio was becoming merely a name nowadays. One of the three was there in body more than mind.

"You have no evidence Hermione, you can't just accuse him because you don't like the look of him." Ron replied testily. From the way he said it, it seemed that there was more to his rebuttal than a simple lack of evidence.

"But I do have evidence, I saw him fly towards the back of the castle, the Hufflepuff dorms are on that side of the castle-"

"So are the Slytherin dorms!" Ron interrupted, raising his voice slightly.

Annoyed, Hermione glared at him across the table, partly angry at his tone but also because she hadn't thought of that possibility, Neville remained oblivious to the increasing anger between the pair. Without looking up from his book he butted into the angry silence.

"Would make sense, what with the flash of green you say you saw, Slytherins wear green." He said simply, as if that solved the mystery entirely.

"It wasn't his robes, it was his eyes I swear, only Harry has those eyes!" She realised her mistake after she said it, Ron was looking at her wordlessly, eyes no longer avoiding her. She could almost hear the accusing thoughts playing out through his mind.

'Why do you know what his eyes look like?'

Before she could catch his eye he looked away again, staring stoically at the fireplace, crackling away softly in the centre of the common room.

Hermione slumped in her chair, defeated. Things had really gone to shit recently.

"It was him, I swear..." She murmured more to herself than to the two other participants of the conversation, but even she could hear the rising doubt in her voice.

Sighing Neville put his book down and looked at Hermione in what was almost pity.

"Look Hermione, Harry is a good person. I'm prepared to believe you that he didn't respond nicely to Dumbledore's death but he wouldn't be the only one, and I think that has coloured your opinion of him. You're seeing shadows because you want to see them." Before she could protest Neville continued, not noticing the dark glint that flickered across Ron's face at those words.

"Besides, it definitely couldn't have been Harry, he's terrified of flying."

Shocked Hermione forgot about Ron and turned to face Neville, who had a pensive look on his face, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

"What do you mean, how could you possibly know that?" She accused, perhaps more harshly than she had any right to, but Neville didn't seem to notice.

"Don't you remember our flying lesson in first year? The kid that crashed into the ground and had to go to the Hospital wing for two weeks to individually re-grow like half the bones in his body?" Neville said.

"That was Harry?" She asked softly, seeing where this was going.

"Yeah, he never wanted to fly again after that. I tried to get him to fly a bit afterwards but he used to get cold sweats whenever I suggested it so I stopped bothering to. He didn't even come to see any of my quidditch matches after I made the team." His vacant expression disappeared suddenly at that.

"I was really put out at first actually, probably what started us kinda moving on from each other, now that I think about it." He continued, looking Hermione in the eye and smiling a little regretfully.

Hermione was struggling to take this information in, but if what Neville said was true, Harry couldn't have been the flier. Whoever it was, they were confident enough to fly straight into the Forbidden forest at top speed and escape through the treetops some time later. No, whoever flew into the forest that night couldn't have been him, though where that left her, she didn't know. She couldn't bring herself to bring her guilty eyes up to meet Ron's.

"Who could it be then?" She whispered, eyes firmly fixed on the floor.

"Dunno, Malfoy maybe? He's a pretty good flier. Though it could be any of the Slytherins to be fair, I don't know enough about any of them to say whether or not they could or would be flying around the forest at night." Neville continued, although he seemed to have lost interest in the conversation at this point and was eyeing her and Ron up thoughtfully. Hermione thought he might finally have picked up on the tension between the pair, how he had missed it up till now was beyond her, he was normally fairly observant.

"Hey, I was wondering..." He started, before pausing as if to consider his words.

"Would you two mind helping out with my practice a bit? It's just that, well, Moody wants me duelling regularly to keep myself improving, says that I need experience and whatnot, but in lessons I only get the chance like, once every 3 weeks, if that." He said nervously, probably aware of the impression his first duel had made on the pair.

Hermione met Ron's eyes determinedly and he returned the gesture.

"Do you want us to do it individually or do you want us to duel you together, mate?" Ron asked, speaking for the first time in a while, not breaking Hermione's gaze.

"Actually the two of you at once would be brilliant! More realistic and all." Neville said happily, looking between the two.

Something passed between Ron and Hermione before they finally broke their gazes to look at the boy-who-lived, waiting a little nervously for their response.

"Of course we would, Neville."

"Yeah don't worry about it mate."

Neville had more important things to worry about than their squabbles, and he needed them as a friend, perhaps more now than ever. They would be there for him, even if it was uncomfortable for them.

* * *

"It's not here." Neville said in confusion.

"What, but it must be! Let me try?" And try she did, but no matter how many times Hermione walked past the painting of Barnabus the Barmy the room of requirement never appeared.

"What the hell?" Ron said, confusion evident in his voice.

"It's no use Hermione, someone must be in there already." Neville said, sighing softly.

"Well I guess we'll have to wait for them, then." She said, and conjured a wooden chair to sit on. After spending god knows how long sitting on that rickety old stool she had conjured the night before, she was prepared to push the boat out in her choice of magical furniture. Smirking slightly at her success she began to walk over to the chair.

"There's no point Hermione, whoever is in there could be there all night, I'd rather we go find somewhere else to practice." Neville said, much to her chagrin.

"But aren't you the slightest bit interested in who is in there?" She said, eyeing her wonderfully conjured chair as she did so, what a waste of a successful conjuration.

"C'mon it could be anyone, it's not as if the room is a secret anymore, the entire DA knew it exists and you know how it is with secrets in Hogwarts..." Ron said with a speck of humour. It was the first time he'd spoken with any sort of normality that evening and she relished the change, brief though it might prove to be.

"I suppose, it still seems odd to me..." she said, but the last part was more for her own benefit and she wasn't sure if either of the two boys heard.

"Hmm, I reckon if we ask Moody he'll let us use his classroom." Neville said, nodding to himself as he did so.

"C'mon lets go."

Hermione followed after him and before long they found themselves standing on the duelling platform in Moody's classroom, standing at the vertices of an invisible triangle.

Moody had been only too happy to provide the room after he heard of Neville's planned use for it, he had been less happy that they interrupted his nap to ask him and Ron had nearly had a heart attack when he walked into the professor's office to find a wand to his throat and a small knife pointed at his heart. Moody has definitely still got it.

After the three agreed on the rules of the duel, Neville activated the wards around the stage and they began. It was a massacre.

Despite her and Ron being on the same team, Neville overpowered them both within 5 minutes, and it only took that long because Ron had become more than competent at his shielding. Neither he nor herself had managed to fire a single offensive spell past the first minute or so of the duel, and she had been stunned and disarmed within a minute and a half.

If the fight between Malfoy and Neville had been brutal from the sidelines, experiencing it yourself was something else.

Having been ennervated by Neville once the duel was over, Hermione took a few moments to catch her breath under the amused gaze of the boy-who-lived.

"How?" was all she managed to get out. He had used his tried and true tactic of sticking to a couple of curses for the entire duel, and having seen him do so before, she had thought herself prepared for it.

"Eh, I'm sorry to say you gave me a lot of opportunities 'mione." He said, but he didn't sound that sorry.

"You're more of a threat offensively than Ron, but your shielding needs work, you can't just dive out of the way of every spell, you have to trust in your shield sometimes." The first part was a limp compliment and she was sure he knew it, she had barely had time to be offensive in any way, it was just used to soften the blow of the following criticism.

"Also, you and Ron need to work together more." he said, frowning. "I only ever had to really deal with the both of you at the start of the duel, after that it was just a series of one on ones." he continued, shrugging a little.

He was right too, she had opened the duelling offensively with Ron, but neither had coordinated with the other after that point. Sighing she looked across to Ron, meeting his gaze. If they were going to provide a challenge, they needed to work together. They could sort things out later, duelling was not an important part of their relationship, nor would it ever be, it could be treated as something else for the time being.

An hour and a half later she finally threw in the towel.

"I'm done Neville, I'm exhausted." she said, picking her wand off the floor and making her way to the edge of the platform.

"Me too mate, not all of us can keep up with you." Ron said, his voice was joking but the statement was obviously true, he sounded knackered.

"Ah don't worry about it, I was going to stop us soon anyway, it's getting late." Neville replied, though he did seem a little disappointed.

They walked in silence back through the corridors of Hogwarts towards the Gryffindor tower, Hermione and Ron taking the time to catch their breaths, Neville once again lost in his own thoughts.

They had gotten better over the course of the session, they had starting working together more in their assaults on Neville, but where they improved he seemed to simply unleash a little bit more. It was disconcerting. Of course she was under no illusions that after such a short period of time there would be any massive change in their duelling ability, she was still as bad at shielding herself as she was at the start of the session, but it was still frustrating. Neville hadn't eased up at all, if she had been expecting an easier time of it because they were his friends, she was sorely mistaken. In fact, if anything, he was more brutal in his fight with them than he had been against Malfoy. Stopping to think about that, she tentatively broke the silence and voiced her thoughts to Neville.

He laughed.

"You think I was gonna show Malfoy what I could really do? Given what we know about him? I trust you guys so I don't need to hold back as much, but no way am I letting Malfoy give an accurate report of my abilities to Voldemort." He said.

"Besides, Moody already knows how good I am, he's been watching me most of the summer, I don't need to impress him any." It was arrogant, but undeniable. Neville was far and away the best in their class, and that had been him holding back to hide his skill. The fact that he had said he didn't need to hold back 'as much' didn't escape her either, and a shiver ran down her spine. He hadn't even revealed his true potential yet, just how good was he?

"Speak of the devil..." Ron said, staring down the corridor.

Walking towards them after turning off from the stairs to the 7th floor was Draco Malfoy.

"Hey Malfoy, what are you doing out after curfew?" Ron said, eyeing him distrustfully.

"I'm a prefect Weasley, I'm allowed out after curfew." The blond replied, tone suggesting he thought Ron might be the dumbest person alive.

"Your patrol isn't tonight though, why are you up here?" Neville asked, eyeing him distrustfully.

"As flattered as I am to know that you've memorised my timetable, scarhead, I have places to be and important people to see, people that are not you." Malfoy responded distastefully, noticeably avoiding the question, before stalking past them and away down the corridor.

"He's definitely up to something." Ron said suspiciously.

"McGonagall did tell us that at the start of the year, Ron." Hermione said testily. "And I distinctly remember her telling us NOT to antagonise him." she continued angrily, before continuing on towards the stairs Malfoy had entered the corridor by. She was being hypocritical she knew, but the situations were different, sort of.

"C'mon Hermione, he won't think anything of it, he'd probably be more surprised if we didn't accuse him of being up to something!" Neville's voice rang out down the corridor after her.

By the time she reached the top of the staircase she had calmed down a bit and had realised that, okay, perhaps she was more than a little hypocritical. Sighing she stopped and leaned on the banister to wait for the two boys. With how things had been going between her and Ron, she couldn't afford to have another fight, even if it was directed entirely at the redhead.

As she stared out into the gaping chasm that the staircase straddled she watched some of the stairs on the floors below move their way silently through the air. It was almost peaceful.

Listening out for the boys footprints as they approached she heard something else. A soft taping, getting quieter and quieter by the second. Realising suddenly what she was hearing she began looking frantically down at the floors below. The stairs didn't move unless people were using them, and someone was moving away from the upper floors very quickly, if the sound of their footsteps was to be believed. That someone might well have heard everything they had said after Malfoy had left.

Not seeing anything and with the footsteps almost silent now she rushed across to the opposite bannister just in time to catch sight of the messy hair and yellow lined robe of Harry Potter disappear down a corridor at the bottom of the stairs two floors below.

Fuck. That was it, she was convinced that he was involved with Malfoy's plan in some way, it was too much of a coincidence, he must be the accomplice McGonagall had been talking about, it presented her with a large problem though.

Hearing Neville and Ron's footsteps approaching she made her decision quickly, if she brought this up with Ron now it could send their relationship troubles past the point of no return. She would keep her silence until she caught Harry doing something nefarious, and then she would go to Ron and McGonagall. Until then she would just observe.

"Hey Hermione, there you are! We thought you wouldn't wait for us."

* * *

So it was that the next few weeks Hermione found herself watching Harry intently whenever possible.

In lessons he continued to confuse her, his work in charms and transfiguration was miraculously average. When the class struggled, he struggled. When the class seemed to grasp a concept, he was right there in the mix grasping it with them. He was never the first or the last to master something, nor was he ever able to perform and spell or transfiguration to any greater level of ability than anyone else in the class. His conjurations remained inaccurate in comparison to her own and his charm work was sloppy. But neither was inaccurate or sloppy enough to bring him to the attention of anyone except herself.

The most miraculous thing however was that he never got extra assignments unless the whole class did. The moment somebody else grasped a concept that would grant them freedom from a threatened assignment, mostly herself or Neville, he would soon follow in their footsteps and complete whatever task it was that was required.

This left two obvious conclusions to be made. Either he worked exceptionally well under pressure and it was just happy coincidence that things turned out that way every time, or he was masking his ability for some reason. She wasn't a believer in coincidences.

Thinking back on the year before she couldn't remember him achieving when it was needed so regularly, although she admittedly had not had any reason to notice such odd things. Nevertheless, she was convinced that, given as academically competitive as she was, she would have noticed someone consistently keeping up with her in class, even if they masked it with mediocrity most of the time.

This suggested something rather sinister to her, whatever Harry was doing with his time outside classes was more valuable to him than maintaining his cover in lessons.

She was sure that if she had had this kind of interest last year, she would have noticed nothing off about his academic achievements. He hid it well, exceptionally well even, but this year he was slipping, and she was determined to know why.

It was in the duelling that it was the most glaringly obvious, and she was now certain she knew why Moody had been staring at him so intently after that first duel. He had been holding back. She had seen that same look grace McGonagall's face the week before when he had miraculously conjured a complex tapestry at the last possible moment, making him the only person other than her to receive an exemption from the extra homework she was setting. Even the teachers were beginning to notice.

It comforted her slightly that he was obviously on the radar of some of the order members in the school, even if they did not yet connect him to the machinations of Malfoy. He was an unlikely candidate for a follower of the Dark Lord, his parents had after all been tortured to insanity by the person many considered to be his right hand. If that wasn't enough, the Dark Lord had been indirectly responsible for the loss of his godfather in their OWL year, estranged though the pair were. Yet unlikely though he was, it was often the most unlikely enemies that caused the most damage. Hermione would not allow the wool to be pulled over her eyes, especially not when her friend's life was at stake.

She had gone out of her way to keep an eye on him between classes but it was difficult to do so without making it obvious what she was up to. Outside of the regular meal times and classes she had little excuse to be in the same section of the castle as him, let alone the same room.

Gryffindor tower was on the opposite side of the castle to the Hufflepuff dorms, he never seemed to use the library and he did not hang about in any of the usual haunts of the students of the school, such as the courtyards or the lakeside.

She had used her capacity as Head Girl to justify her movements through odd areas of the castle when others had asked, but she knew even at the time that it was a flimsy excuse. It worked once, or twice at most. but it didn't fool people for long and she began to get suspicious looks. The Slytherins did not take kindly to her wandering about in _their_ half of the castle, and although they said nothing to her face, she knew she was attracting attention. She had been beginning to suspect that it may be more risk than it was worth, endangering their mission with Malfoy in the hope of catching Harry doing something he shouldn't be doing. It wasn't until she found the bright green eyes of the Hufflepuff in question staring at her curiously as she loitered outside the entrance to the Hufflepuff dorms that she finally stopped. He knew she was watching him.

So that left her right where she started, sat in the great hall, glancing discreetly at him across the room, no closer to finding anything untoward about him apart from circumstantial evidence and uncertain glimpses of what could have been him. It frustrated her to no end.

She had even begun to wonder whether her interest in the mysterious boy _was_ truly motivated by the mission they had been given, or whether it was a symptom of her deteriorating relationship with Ron. She was cynical enough to consider it.

Harry Potter was oddly handsome, in a gaunt way, she wasn't afraid to admit that. He was a loner, that much she _had_ determined in her considerable hours of observation, but nobody seemed to dislike him. He got on amicably with those in his house, but seemed to be acquaintances with all and friends with none. It was the mysterious and distant stranger stereotype she had so loved to read about when she was growing up as a kid, Mr. Darcy had been her first crush, embarrassingly.

It wasn't as if she could say her interest in the boy hadn't been peaked by his hidden academic talent, it was exactly the kind of thing the stories were made of. There was also a perfectly good explanation for it, if the stories were to believed. The mysterious stranger always hid their talents because of some event in their past, emotional trauma and neglect were common themes, but sometimes outright abuse was involved. Whatever the reason, it was never through fault of their own.

He was ticking multiple checkboxes in her mental list of attractive things and it scared her. Maybe her interest wasn't so formal after all.

Her only comfort was that when she looked at him she did not feel the familiar flutter she had felt when she looked at Ron, her heart did not leap into her mouth when he looked in her direction, nor did she find herself worried about her appearance around him. No, all she ever felt was a deep suspicion, bubbling under the surface, and a sickly unease.

It didn't help that he had acted completely normal ever since she had begun to spy on him. After she was noticed watching him in the halls she wouldn't have been surprised if he had decided to lay low a little, but even before then he hadn't done anything untoward. He seemed to go to class, go to dinner and return to the common room every day, without fail.

Of course he could have been sneaking around without her notice, under an invisibility cloak perhaps. But those were rare, Neville's was the only one she knew of, and if she started assuming that, she might as well start assuming that he could somehow apparate in Hogwarts. It was a pointless exercise.

Harry Potter seemed, in many ways, completely normal.

* * *

"Hermione, can I talk to you?" Ron spoke softly but she heard it clearly over the chatter of the great hall.

Not checking to see if she was following him, he turned and walked out of the hall.

Hermione got up without a word, not noticing the concerned look Ginny sent her way, or the complete apathy of Neville. She had been expecting this, ever since that night in the Astronomy tower, there would be only one topic for this conversation.

Her eyes followed Ron's back as he turned left out the doors and took the first staircase up to the next floor. It was a familiar route, she already knew where they would end up.

The first floor was mostly taken up with empty classrooms, the exception being the Arithmancy class room on the other side of the castle. Because of this it was a favourite haunt for students desiring privacy, for whatever reason. On her prefect rounds she often found students locked away in the rooms with rudimentary locking spells and the occasional advanced detection ward. She had long suspected she didn't catch all of the students who used the rooms, but since they had started covering some basic ward detection in charms and in runes she had begun noticing the extra defences the enterprising rule-breaker could place in her way.

In most cases, if the student placed something of that nature on the classroom it warranted investigation. Quick locking charms were more the fare of the sneaky couple, those with enough forethought to use detection wards were generally up to something nefarious.

Or they simply shared her sense of perfection. She could distinctly remember using nearly all the wards she encountered at some point or other during the 6th year when she would sneak off with Ron for some private time. They had never been caught, but she had begun to suspect that that was more because the prefects had chosen to let them be rather than due to her spells.

She knew he was taking her to their old haunt, 3rd room on the right when you rounded the corner. Far enough away that when the detection ward triggered on the corridor they had time to make themselves look decent and, if it was after curfew, get out of the room and into the corridor where they could use their prefect status to get them out of trouble. Travelling down a corridor after curfew was well within the rights of the prefects, using abandoned classrooms for _other_ activities, less so.

Opening the door to the room he ushered her inside with more formality than he had ever shown in this situation. The door was more accustomed to being barged through and shut haphazardly.

"So, you wanted to talk." she said softly, watching him as he walked over to a desk in the middle of the room and sat down on the chair sideways. Seeing his intention she walked over and sat similarly opposite him.

"Yes, I, uh." He started, but he was obviously struggling.

"Look, things haven't been great between us recently, I know you've noticed and it's been all I can think about." He said, regaining his courage. She could only nod her assent.

"In fact, sometimes, it feels like we aren't in a relationship at all. I barely see you nowadays, and when I do, it's... it's like you're far away, and I'm reaching out to someone who isn't interested anymore." He said, eyes shifting to the cold stone floor.

"Ron, you know I'm interested, please don't be like this, I just haven't had much time and I've had other things on my mind." She replied, urging him to accept her words but knowing deep down that he wouldn't.

"And how am I to know if you don't show me?" He said.

"How am I supposed to think you are still interested, that you still like me, when whenever I try and work on our relationship you have something to do, or you get distracted, or your attention is elsewhere?" he continued, his voice remained the same volume but it had an edge to it that it didn't have before. It hurt her to hear him talk to her like that.

"Is this about me not kissing you when we were in the astronomy tower?" she asked softly, this time it was her averting her eyes and him staring.

"Because if it was I want you to know that I didn't mean for it to be such a big thing, I just thought I saw something and I was thinking about the mission." she continued, and she heard him sigh to himself.

"Yes, that's part of it. But only a small part." he said, looking at her with an expression she couldn't comprehend.

"What do you mean?" she asked carefully.

"Well it's what got me to take a step back and look at us, and you." he said, voice almost a mumble.

"Explain." she said, knowing that whatever he said next, she would almost certainly dislike. Whenever he alluded to something that she wouldn't be happy with he mumbled. It was one of the things she had picked up on over the years.

"Whenever I watch you when you think I'm not there, or not looking, you are always looking at him." he said the last part viciously and she knew immediately who he was referring to.

"I'm watching him because I think he's up to something!" She said indignantly, aware that she was raising her voice.

"So you watch him every minute of every day? Like he isn't going to notice? Don't expect me to believe that, you'd be more subtle about it if that's what you were worried about. Don't think people haven't told me about you hanging about near the Hufflepuff dorms." he responded angrily.

She balked at that, had she really been so obvious that someone had thought to tell Ron?

"Well no one else was keeping an eye on him and do you know how hard it is to keep up with him? He's never anywhere except his dorms or classes, if I wanted to keep an eye on him I had to seek him out!" she said, but she could see her defence was weak.

He picked up on it.

"Uhuh, so what exactly is suspicious about that?" he said, eyes glinting dangerously.

"It's not that, it's how he acted at Dumbledore's funeral and the whole business with his duelling." She defended.

"And the broom rider you saw?" he asked, staring at her.

"...yes." she refused to lie to him, even if it wouldn't help her cause any.

"Hermione, we know that wasn't him! He hates flying, Neville said so!" Ron said in exasperation.

"So what exactly are you getting at? Do you think I fancy him?" she said, now angry herself.

"Do you?"

She was taken aback at the question, did he really think she fancied Harry?

He took the silence badly, turning away from her and staring at the blackboard at the front of the room.

"Can you tell me honestly, one hundred percent that you don't have feelings for him?"

"I don't know..." she couldn't.

He stiffened.

"We need to take a break, _I _need to take a break, I can't deal with this right now." He said softly, rising from his seat and turning to leave the room.

"When you know how you feel, come find me. If things haven't changed too much."

With that he left.

Staring at the door as it closed behind him Hermione sat, dejected.

She couldn't help it, she started crying, how had it come to this?

* * *

"Hermione, can I talk to you?"

She jerked at the words, still reeling from the conversation earlier that day. She was sat on a sofa in the common room, burying herself in her books. She hadn't seen Ron since _that_ conversation after lunch.

"Um, sure Ginny, what about?" Ginny looked at her oddly, probably trying to understand her reaction to her question. Sitting down next to Hermione she nervously looked around the common room.

"It's about Neville, do you, um, do you think you could keep this between us?" she said quietly, as if she was worried someone was listening. Hermione prayed to whatever powers existed that the topic of this conversation wasn't going to be the same as the one earlier.

"I promise, Ginny." she said.

"Well it's just, I noticed he hasn't hung out with you or Ron much recently and he seems to be really distant, and well, I was wondering if you lot had had a falling out or if you knew why?"

Hermione tensed at Ron's name and by the look on Ginny's face she had noticed, but politely ignored it. It wouldn't surprise her if given Hogwarts' record with secrets, her and Ron's split was already old news.

"We haven't had a falling out, but I know what you mean. Ever since Dumbledore's death he's been a lot more solitary. Do you still see him?" she replied, the last bit a little tentative, she didn't want to press any emotional buttons when her own were in such a state.

Ginny smiled fondly to herself.

"Yeah, I see him a lot actually, he's been great to me." she said, a faraway look in her eyes.

"But I think I'm the only one he still talks to regularly, and I'm worried." she continued, suddenly serious.

"Have you tried talking to him about it?" Hermione asked, frowning. As much as she hated to admit it, she was jealous of Ginny, in more ways than one.

"I tried, but he refused to talk about it. It's the only time we've had an argument." Ginny replied, looking unhappy.

"He said I shouldn't worry about it, said he was just working a lot and that it wasn't anything else, but..." she carried on.

"Well as far as I know that's all there is to it as well, but I can see why you're worried, it's not like him." Hermione said.

"Yeah, he's also... changed since last year." Ginny frowned.

"In what way?"

"I don't really know." Ginny said lamely.

"It's hard to describe, but like, you know with the duel against Malfoy? I couldn't believe it was Neville when I finally got the full story of it out of Ron, I mean, since when has he been so..." she paused, searching for the right word.

"Brutal?" Hermione supplied.

"Yeah... Probably not how he'd like to be described but pretty accurate." Ginny said uncomfortably.

"If it helps, when we've practiced duelling with him he's been just as brutal, if not more." Hermione offered.

"If anything that makes it worse, if it had just been a vendetta against Malfoy I could maybe understand it, but you are his best friends!" Ginny was looking more unhappy by the minute.

"I suppose, what do you want to do about it?" Hermione asked.

"That's the problem, I don't know if it's something I should be worried about or encourage. I know he's gotten a lot better at duelling since last year, and I guess this personality shift is part of it, but I don't want him to turn into a single-minded robot about it!" Ginny said in frustration.

Hermione nodded her understanding, she didn't really know what to say, there wasn't an easy solution to this problem. Neville _was _changing and there wasn't much any of them could do about it, the war was coming and he was preparing, they couldn't deny him that because they were uncomfortable with him.

"I think Dumbledore's death hit him hard and he's been throwing himself into work ever since. He's training for war and that changes people, I guess all we can do is be there for him." she said.

Ginny was about to respond when Hermione noticed the portrait swing open out of the corner of her eye, turning to look she saw Neville climb through clutching a newspaper and talking to Ron hurriedly. Her back stiffened when she saw the redhead, but nevertheless she kicked Ginny discreetly to stop her talking. Luckily she got the message.

Scanning the common room Neville's eyes found her and Ginny sat on the sofas. Looking determined he made his way over to them, parting a sea of first years as he went. Ron trailed sullenly behind, avoiding Hermione's gaze. She wondered if Ron had talked to Neville about their breakup, if he had, it didn't look like that would be the topic of this conversation.

Slamming the paper down on the table in front of her and Ginny, Neville slumped into an armchair next to them looking angry.

"Tomorrows Prophet." he said, as if that was enough of a response to their enquiring glances.

As it turned out, it was.

**Break in at the Ministry of Magic: You-Know-Who attacks Department of Mysteries**

* * *

****Soooo, chapter two! Little bit later than a week, but it was transfer deadline day in the EPL and I got lazy, so sue me! It's 10k words, I was half right!

Anyway, awkward chapter to write, I found it very hard to write a believable breakup scene and I can only hope I got somewhere close. They are such personal things and, being a guy, writing from a girls perspective is already hard enough without having to throw in a scene which requires you to really try and get in character to write!

Plot should begin to pick up from here on out, although most of the action for this fic will remain centered around Hogwarts so don't go expecting Hermione to go off on the warpath anytime soon. Similarly, a couple of people were asking about pairings changing and things like that, I must stress, this is NOT a romance fic. The focus has been a little bit more on romance so far as a means to an end. There will be romantic elements later on, but purely as a way to highlight plot points.

A couple of people were asking about the differences between this AU and canon. I'm going to attempt to bring these up throughout the fic as Hermione delves more and more into Harry's past, but as a general rule, things are pretty much the same up until after 4th year when they begin to deviate a bit, and then after 5th year they deviate a lot. The exception is, of course, the alternate fates of harry and Nevilles parents. I don't really feel the need to go into how this came about as it isn't relevant to the story at all, but you could assume something like Voldemort got to the potters first but they had sent harry away so he let his death eaters torture the two of them and went after Neville. Or you can come up with your own version.

I'm debating whether to have a scene where they discuss Sirius and why he didn't become Harry's godfather, but if i don't, the reason effectively comes down to not having proof of his innocence and Harry not being involved with the OotP like he is in canon. With his parents still alive, if in Mungo's, it was decided that they would wait until after they could prove his innocence to reveal Sirius to Harry. Then of course he fell through the veil.

ANYWHO, I hope you've read and at least partially enjoyed this chapter. Any criticism is most welcome, the more critical the better! Will hopefully get another chapter out soon!


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